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U.S.
Moves to Squeeze FTAA Opponents
Emad
Mekay
WASHINGTON, (IPS) - The United
States might be trying to re-write its
strategy towards a threatened trade
deal in the Americas by adding more
pressure tactics to its old technique
of doling out economic benefits to
Latin American countries.
Trade ministers from 34 countries will
meet next week in Miami for the eighth
ministerial meeting of the Free Trade
Area of the Americas (FTAA), a
pan-American deal that would create
the largest trading bloc in the world
stretching from Canada to Argentina --
with the notable exception of Cuba --
by January 2005.
But the meeting is seen on the road to
an impasse as the United States and
Brazil, co-chairs of the current round
of talks, lock horns over the scope of
the negotiations.
Brazil, on behalf of some South
American countries, wants to exclude
areas such as copyright and patent
protection, investment and government
procurement and leave them for broader
global trade talks under the auspices
of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The United States refuses to discuss
agriculture subsidies, which South
American countries say are depressing
crop prices and creating unfair
competition with U.S. farming
companies.
U.S. farmers also oppose talks aimed
to reduce domestic subsidies within
the FTAA because they complain that
would not oblige other competitors
from developed countries like the
European Union (EU) and Japan to make
similar cuts.
Similar disagreements brought global
trade talks to a resounding halt in
Cancun, Mexico in September, when 21
developing countries banded together
to protest rich nations' failure to
drop their hefty agricultural
subsidies. The talks eventually
collapsed.
Fearing a re-run of the Cancun episode
in Miami, and under pressure from U.S.
corporations, Washington has recently
sought to modify its tactics without
budging on its original demands.
The United States now appears more
aggressive and threatening as it seeks
to isolate the opposing camp in Latin
America by forging bilateral trade
agreements.
Last week, Peru said that U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick
would announce in Miami the start of
bilateral free-trade talks between the
two countries, while Colombia also
said it will announce similar talks
with Washington soon.
Several businessmen and business
associations in the United States are
reporting that Washington's attempts
to sign bilateral trade deals with
other countries in Latin America is
bearing fruit, and that deals with
Ecuador, Panama and Bolivia will also
be announced in Miami.
Washington is currently negotiating a
U.S.-Central American Free Trade
Agreement (CAFTA) with Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and
Nicaragua.
On Aug. 4, the administration notified
Congress it intends to also initiate
negotiations with a sixth nation, the
Dominican Republic, and to seek to
integrate it into the CAFTA.
On Sep. 3, President George W. Bush
signed into law a free trade agreement
with Chile, the first such deal with a
South American country. Chile joined
Mexico and Canada as the U.S.'
hemispheric free trade partners.
”The strategy is all about how to
corner Brazil to make them feel they
will be isolated if they don't go
along with the kind of FTAA that the
U.S. government wants,” said Sarah
Anderson a fellow at the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington.
”That's because I think they see
Brazil as really the crown jewel of
the Americas.”
With the largest economy in South
America and a population of nearly 180
million people, Brazil has staunchly
protected its economy, retaining more
restrictions on foreign investments
than most other Latin American
nations.
Its government wants trade concessions
from Washington in exchange for
supporting some parts of the FTAA
''Brazil is the place the U.S.
companies really want opened up,”
Anderson said in an interview. ”All
of this talk about bilateral
agreements ... is really about
cornering Brazil. That's what they are
after. They don't care about having a
bilateral with (a small country like)
Panama, for example.”
Rick Rowden, policy director of
ActionAid USA, told IPS that
Washington was adopting a
country-by-country approach because
the FTAA has become so big it
threatens to generate a huge backlash
both at home and in South American
countries.
Essential Action Co-director Robert
Weissman called the U.S. piecemeal
strategy alarming.
”The (Latin) countries enter these
negotiations with no capacity or no
political strategy to extract anything
from the U.S. except for very minor
market access concessions, and with
near desperation ... they claim
success just by virtue of having
negotiated an agreement with the
U.S.,” he said in an interview.
But isolating Brazil is not the only
new U.S. tactic. Earlier this month,
Zoellick called for a
''mini-ministerial'' meeting to try to
reduce opposition to the deal ahead of
Miami.
The meeting was criticised for
ignoring Venezuela, a major country in
South America that has previously
voiced concerns about the deal, while
inviting nations that appeared
receptive of the U.S. position, like
Chile, Colombia and Trinidad and
Tobago.
Zoellick has also tried to enlist the
backing of the influential Latino
U.S.. business community, many of
whose members have strong business
ties in their countries of origin.
Last week, the U.S. official held a
meeting for Latino businessmen in the
White House to launch the Latino
Coalition for Free Trade, a group
expected to lobby for the FTAA in
South America.
More than one hundred prominent Latino
businessmen and community leaders from
across the United States attended.
”The future of our hemisphere
depends on the strength of our
commitment to free markets, economic
opportunity and democracy,” Zoellick
told them.
Critics also say U.S. negotiators are
resorting to so-called trade
''capacity building'', training or
funding for officials in partner
nations that often results in
indoctrinating the officials in U.S.
trade policies, making them more
readily adaptable to a new trade
regime.
Critics say that kind of training puts
the rules of agreements like the FTAA
or the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) above local decision
and policy making.
”That's the problem that we are
faced with -- the lack of any
possibility of developing real
policies that are rooted in the needs
of the people in terms of their
democratic rights,” said Tony Clarke
of the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute
in an interview.
”It's a change in the way in which
governance occurs because every time a
major social or environmental public
policy or programme is put forward, it
must be put through that test to see
whether it is NAFTA proof-or FTAA-proof.”
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