It’s tough to have a serious debate about trade issues in Washington state.

We’ll try again in the coming weeks as Congress considers trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama and possibly South Korea. But when the subject comes up locally, bet on the captains of government and industry to revert to our conversation-stopping unofficial state slogan: Washington is “The Most Trade-Dependent State in the Nation.”

Google that phrase, and you’ll find a Who’s Who of Washington elected officials and business leaders, plus newspaper editorials from across the state. You won’t find any other state laying claim to be the MTDSN.

With our major ports, Boeing and Microsoft, and agriculture and forest products exports, let’s go ahead and assume that we’re it. Plus, let’s say the assertion most likely to follow MTDSN is also true: that one in three Washington jobs is directly linked to trade.

While it’s probably better than “SayWA,” the problem with this slogan is that it is often used to stifle a real discussion about international trade agreements. Presented in that context, it can be – and is – used to convey two simplistic, erroneous assumptions: that the trade pact du jour will increase trade opportunities and create jobs in Washington, and that opposition to that trade agreement must be opposition to trade itself.

Organized labor has vocally opposed so-called “free trade” agreements from NAFTA to CAFTA to WHAT-HAVE- A because none of them contain enforceable labor standards. In our view, their deliberate exclusion of such standards promotes the exploitation of workers overseas and accelerates job losses in America.

For taking that position, we have been dismissed as anti-trade protectionists trying to preserve our horse-and-buggy industries.

But times they are a-changin’, and some powerful people are jumping on our horse and buggy.

The job creation promised with previous trade agreements has failed to materialize, but the “giant sucking sound” has. One in six manufacturing jobs in the United States has disappeared since 2000, and those jobs have been replaced mostly by service-sector jobs that pay less and offer fewer benefits.

So, in contrast to their party’s pre-Gingrich Revolution embrace of NAFTA and the Clinton administration’s continual dismissal of labor’s trade concerns, the new Democratic Congress may require America’s trading partners to abide by core International Labor Organization standards. These include the freedom of association to form unions, a ban on exploitative child labor and other internationally accepted human rights.

And now that it might happen, the free-traders are changing their tune.

For years, they have insisted that America mustn’t impose its labor standards on other nations – as if basic human rights are optional and a matter of cultural autonomy. But now that the Bush White House’s congressional rubberstamp has dried up, it’s no longer about us imposing our values on other nations, it’s about them imposing theirs on us.

In a recent letter to Rep. Charles Rangel, the senior Democratic member of the House on trade issues, the National Association of Manufacturers says it opposes any attempt to expose U.S. labor laws to challenge through trade agreements.

“We are willing to look at provisions to obtain high labor standards in other countries, but subjecting our labor system to foreign challenge is simply not something to which we can agree,” wrote NAM boss John Engler. He added, “If that were the price of obtaining new trade agreements, we would not be able to be supportive.”

That’s right, Washington state. American manufacturers might oppose trade agreements. Using our previous standards of MTDSN logic, that means they’re anti-trade protectionists!

But seriously, NAM’s argument validates another of organized labor’s assertions, that U.S. labor laws are too weak and too poorly enforced to protect Americans’ freedom to choose for themselves whether they want to unionize. Employers routinely intimidate, harass and fire workers who support unionization, and many states have laws designed to discourage unions and keep them weak.

This new tack on opposing labor standards in trade agreements is tacit admission that we are right. In the Land of the Free, your freedom is often checked at your employer’s door.

Perhaps then, it’s up to us in Washington state, The Most Trade-Dependent State in the Nation, to save future trade agreements by leading the effort to lift up our labor laws to internationally accepted standards. Now that’s what I’d call free trade.