It has been reported, by at least some of the media, that President Obama has finally decided to make his first truly positive contribution to our difficult economic and job environment. He has submitted to Congress for approval the three free-trade treaties negotiated and signed five years ago with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. During the last two year's of President Bush's term, the labor union's speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, refused to give these agreements the time of day. For the last three years, President Obama has equally scorned them.

Reality has finally occurred. These three countries have progressively negotiated positive free-trade arrangements with other rational international entities, slowly isolating us from the benefits that would accrue to Americans by approving these treaties. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has estimated that $40 billion in export sales and some 380,000 jobs here in America were being jeopardized by our inattention to these treaties.

Attempts to attach as a condition for action, a bill with substantial costs for government sponsored and paid retraining of job skills have impeded this submission. It has been widely reported that there are 3 million unfilled jobs in American companies in our country for which the employers have been unable to find workers with the requisite skills. To the extent this is true, and to the extent that free trade causes displacement of current workers, then training for new and needed skills makes a lot of sense. It can be argued that the cost of same needs to be the responsibility of the individual; and it can also be well-argued that a wise and benevolent country might well be advised to subsidize these costs.

But of one thing we can be absolutely sure: In today's world it is not possible to enhance one's well being by trying to build or maintain barriers to free trade. Isolation is about as sensible, with transportation and communications as flexible and extensive as they are, as pulling a blanket over your head and ignoring the rest of the world as it goes steaming by. Our country continues to be a serious innovator of products for export to huge international markets, as well as being a vast producer of agricultural products for a hungry world. Tariff reprisals are all far too easy for our trading partners to create when provoked.

We have real-life examples of how this works and should learn from them. North and South Korea were very similar in an economic sense. Neither had vast natural resources but both operate in the dynamic economic environment of Asia. In the North the majority of the population lives in starvation conditions while the politicians and defense entities milk the state. In the South, the economic condition is vastly superior and the people are creative, worldly and thriving. One country is a closed society with shut borders and a dictatorially controlled economy, while the other is open, prosperous, and benefiting from its participation with the rest of the world. Does any reader really think he would prefer the rigid restrictions of North Korea over the freedoms and economic opportunities of South Korea?

The pressure on Obama to conclude these trade agreements with congressional approvals has been intense and continual. His reluctance has come from his subservience to union ideology that these treaties would result in job losses. This is thinking that could have originated in North Korea or in long-since discarded 18th- or 19th-century protectionism.

Facing his challenge for re-election in 12 months, he finally decided there was more to be gained than lost by joining the rest of the world with more open borders for greater trade. This will provide benefits to consumers as well as actually creating more job opportunities as has been shown over and over again. Maybe it is a good thing that Obama has to "get real" if he wants a second term. Let's hope for more reality in the coming months. There are many other areas where he is inhibiting economic growth and well-being.

Santa Fean Gregg Bemis is an industrialist/adventurer and concerned senior citizen.