By Jonathan Cook
Environment News ServiceNovember 6, 2002
Trade ministers from the 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere, minus Cuba, met in Quito Friday for the latest round of negotiations on a possible Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA would expand the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement throughout the region, liberalizing trade and investment regimes, reducing tariffs, and expanding market access.
While its supporters argue that this will create jobs and prosperity, critics believe the FTAA will lead to further poverty and environmental damage in a region already reeling from political and economic crises.
The trade ministers released a declaration following the conference that affirmed their countries' commitment to the FTAA process, and agreed to retain a target date of 2005 for completing the negotiations. But a host of substantial disagreements remain unresolved.
With more than 800 million people inhabiting the Western Hemisphere, once agreed, the FTAA would be the largest free trade area in the world.
One major roadblock is U.S. agricultural subsidies, which now total approximately $50 billion each year. Smaller Latin American countries worry that the FTAA will pry open their markets to a flood of highly subsidized food imports. They want the subsidy issue on the table at next year's round of talks in Miami.
The ministerial meetings were preceded by a diverse week of events involving businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and social movements from across the Americas, who made clear their divergent opinions on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
The 7th Americas Business Forum attracted nearly 900 corporate executives from across the hemisphere, who tried to hammer out a set of detailed recommendations to the ministers on what a future trade agreement should include. Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told a luncheon audience, "All of us here know we need an FTAA. We need it very soon."
But regional politicians were less sanguine about the possibility of achieving that goal any time soon. With the Argentine economy in crisis and a newly elected Brazilian president openly skeptical of the FTAA, Heinz Moeller, the Ecuadorean foreign minister, warned delegates that not everyone on the South American continent shares their optimism about free trade.
Moeller urged that more attention be paid to the mounting criticism from civil society. This criticism was evident in Quito, as a diverse array of students, unionists, environmentalists, farmers, and indigenous people from across the Americas met at universities and lecture halls to attack the Free Trade Area of the Americas and to propose a range of alternatives.
These workshops and panel discussions, which were held under the slogan "Another America Is Possible," culminated in a demonstration on Thursday by about 10,000 people.
Protesters attempted to march to the Marriott Hotel, but were met by several thousand police and soldiers who had barricaded the surrounding streets. Tear gas injured at least 10 people, including the head of a major Ecuadorean union.
On Thursday night, following the march, 65 representatives from the various NGOs and social movements confronted some of the trade ministers at an unprecedented and previously unscheduled forum in the Swissotel.
Leonidas Iza, the head of CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador), the country's largest association of indigenous people, denounced the potential impact of FTAA on poor people across the Americas. "We raise our voices and the North American governments call us terrorists. We are not threatening anything, but we are tired and we are hungry," said Iza.
In a public statement, the Hemispheric Social Alliance - a coalition of social movements across the Americas that organized many of the week's events and protests - challenged the region's governments to produce a different kind of document. "The FTAA would be nothing less than a supranational economic constitution in which our national sovereignty would be ceded to North American interests," they argued.
At the forum, Ambassador Robert Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative and head of his country's delegation, said he accomplished the seven key goals he had set for the FTAA ministerial meeting. The United States won endorsement for a comprehensive trade capacity building program to help small and developing countries in the region to fully benefit from the FTAA, a goal that Zoellick identified as his number one priority.
Zoellick announced at Quito that President George W. Bush will seek a 37 percent increase in U.S. trade capacity building assistance for the region in fiscal year 2003, to $140 million.
The ministers confirmed a detailed schedule for the exchange of offers in services, investment, agriculture, government procurement, and non-agricultural market access. Initial market access offers will be submitted between December 15 and February 15, 2003, with revised offers due by July 15, 2003.
The United States and Brazil will co-chair the FTAA process through the conclusion of negotiations in January 2005. Ministers agreed that their next meeting will be in Miami in late 2003, with another meeting set for Brazil in 2004.
But FTAA critics accused Zoellick of conducting closed door negotations without the consent of his own people. Polls show that about 70 percent of U.S. citizens oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas, although basic ignorance of the negotiating process is even greater.
The ministers agreed at Quito to release the consolidated text of the FTAA to the public. The text was made public immediately following the conclusion of the ministerial meeting and is online at the official FTAA site at: http://www.ftaa-alca.org/.
One goal of FTAA opponents is to conduct popular plebiscites on the agreement throughout the Americas. In September, such a vote in Brazil showed 98 percent opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
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