Latinnews Daily | October 15, 2003
Fresh from quitting the Brazil-led G-22 of developing countries, Peru has announced that it will commence free-trade negotiations with the US on 22 November. The foreign trade minister and vice-president, RaAl DAez Canseco, said that Peru and Colombia would begin talks in Miami on 22 November after he phoned US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to confirm that Peru had officially left the daily-diminishing G-22, which was formed last month in CancAn to oppose the agricultural subsidies of the US and the EU. DAez Canseco has come in for sharp criticism from the opposition, which accuses him of souring relations with Brazil, immediately after signing a aE-strategic allianceaE(TM) with the South American giant in August that paved the way for PeruaE(TM)s entry into the trade bloc Mercosul as an associate member. DAez Canseco claims that relations with BrasAlia remain on a positive footing but there is no denying that his announcement will go down badly with President Lula, who saw Peru as the first part in a hemispheric jigsaw of free trade, a sort of South American free-trade agreement (Safta).A
Brazil had hoped to harness Latin American support within the G-22 to limit the scope of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) unless the US made major concessions on agricultural trade.Latinnews Daily:
