Right on the heels of the Bolivian factory workers’ history-making march to demand a free trade pact at the U.S. embassy gates, one of Hugo Chavez’s minions has come out to condemn free trade with all of the Americas (ALCA), and said MercoSur (a smaller non-U.S. trade bloc dominated by Brazil and Argentina) is the way to go.

Something in the Bolivians’ actions has stuck in the chavista craw. There is something odd about how they are raging against trade with the U.S. so virulently all of a sudden. When we last heard from such people, they were ranting on and on about a ‘U.S. invasion.’ But now a real threat from Bolivia’s workers has hit them hard: Free trade is a revolutionary act that also is the Venezuelan dictator’s worst nightmare.

All the more reason to applaud the brave Bolivians and their struggle to win free trade with the U.S. It’s also an impetus for us to turn the heat up on the U.S. administration to force it to quit stalling and to get going on extending free trade. To paraphrase a famous phrase of George Bush’s: ‘We now have (economic) capital, and we intend to use it.’

UPDATE: Miguel Octavio has more here.