Reuters | January 11, 2004
MONTERREY, Mexico - Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said on Sunday he did not expect a deal on a proposed Americas-wide free trade zone by the January 2005 deadline but he insisted the pact was worth fighting for.
Talks on the 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, have run into trouble amid disputes between the United States on one side and Brazil and Argentina on the other over the size of U.S. farm subsidies, copyright and patent laws and foreign direct investment rules.
The region's governments agreed in November to work toward a watered-down version of the trade pact by January 2005.
Asked by reporters on Sunday whether the full version of the agreement could be completed by January 2005, Martin replied: "That's a bit optimistic. I think it's a shame."
He added: "I think that if we don't make it by the 2005 deadline, then in fact that's very unfortunate. But if we miss that deadline, I don't think we should give up. I think we should continue to push for free trade with the Americas."
Speaking on his plane to an Americas-wide summit in Mexico, Martin said that if the FTAA deal collapsed, Canada would continue negotiating bilateral trade agreements with Latin American nations.
The two-day Summit of the Americas, which starts on Monday in Mexico's industrial city of Monterrey, was called to discuss how to reduce poverty and strengthen democracy across the region.
The U.S. government wants the region's leaders to again commit to the January 2005 deadline for an FTAA deal to create the world's largest trade bloc, covering 34 countries and 800 million people.
But Brazil is leading opposition to the proposal, saying it should not be part of this week's summit because it would simply draw attention away from the issues of poverty, growth and democracy.
Martin told reporters he wanted to see more informal leaders' meetings at international summits to make them more productive.
"At formal meetings, there are about 40 people around a table and each one of them has their speech to read and each one reads it while the rest are thinking about something else. This achieves absolutely nothing," he said.
"But meetings where you have exchanges of views, differences of opinion, these for me are more important," he added, saying he preferred it "where people put their set pieces aside and they really have (a go) at each other."Reuters:
