Here’s a small item that looks like real news – Nick Burns, the number three guy at State, insists that the Andean Free Trade Agreement (this is CAFTA, but for Andean states like Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) is advancing nicely. News sources have repeatedly said that the bloody and terrible Congressional battle to pass CAFTA probably made the Bush administration too demoralized to try to pass more free trade agreements for the foreseeable future.

But I am not so sure about that. Maybe, as Burns’ statements suggest, the Bush administration is instead emboldened by CAFTA’s success. And it will grow bolder still as the benefits of CAFTA all around the world become known. But more to the point, this AFTA trade agreement is necessary because we owe it to Colombia.

This brave nation has done everything it should be doing to pull itself out of the economic mud and become the great economic power it was meant to be. It has rooted out thugs and chiselers from its government, smashed terror groups left and right, and ordered everyone to practice ‘austerity’ for the express purpose of enabling the private sector to grow. It has never wavered. Its economy has grown 6% in the last year and its stock market is one of the best-performing in the entire world. To read President Alvaro Uribe’s inspiring speeches is a stunning experience indeed – this fine and noble man gets it.

All Colombia needs now is opportunity. And that opportunity AFTA does provide will crush Marxist narcoterrorists dead like bugs. Along with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

If Nick Burns is not just blowing smoke, these statements suggesting a powerful Bush administration commitment to AFTA is very good news indeed. We can’t let our friend Colombia down.

The story is here.

And thanks, Glenn!