Agence France Presse | June 15, 2003
WASHINGTON (AFP) - With trade representatives from the Americas split on when to achieve a hemispheric free trade zone -- a key US policy goal -- Central American negotiators prepare for an important round of trade talks Monday with US officials.
Following a meeting at a retreat outside Washington, trade officials from 14 countries from across the Americas were divided on implementing a planned free trade zone designed to stretch from Alaska to southern Argentina, a market of 823 million people.
The plan, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), has been a cornerstone of US foreign policy since all 34 countries in the western hemisphere -- with Cuba the notable exception -- agreed to it in 1988.
The trade officials held a meeting at the conference center in Maryland, outside Washington, that ended Friday.
At the event, US Trade Representative Richard Zoellick argued that the FTAA January 2005 deadline should be met, and that the controversial topics of dumping allegations and agricultural exports should be handled at the World Trade Organization.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim however argued that the FTAA deadlines should be postponed, and all outstanding issues -- including services, investments, and government purchases, as well as agriculture and dumping allegations -- should be handled by the WTO, or if necessary, resolve them in bilateral talks.
Officials after the meeting "were very divided" between the two positions, a South American source at the meeting told AFP.
Brazil wants to slow down the FTAA process, believing the Mercosur trade bloc -- which groups Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay -- should first be better consolidated and serve as a balance in negotiations.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva even wants to merge Mercosur with the Andean Group, South America's other large trade bloc.
Brazil, the world's eighth largest economy, accounts for around 2.5 percent of the global gross domestic product.
Brazil was particularly stung by US protective tariffs on steel imports, and an increase in US farm subsidies valued at 180 billion dollars over ten years.
US officials argue that the subsidies are below the WTO maximum for the United States, which is 19.1 billion per year.
But Brazilian officials say that nearly 60 percent of its exports to the United States bump into non-tariff barriers such as state subsidies on exports or agriculture, anti-dumping laws, or food quality regulations.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez late Saturday proposed postponing the final implementation of the FTAA until 2010.
If Latin America and the Caribbean join the FTAA by 2005 "it could be a death knell for the hemisphere" because of the size differences with the US economy, Chavez said.
Meanwhile Central American and US trade negotiators sit down Monday in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for another round of talks aimed at reaching a joint Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
Honduran Industry and Commerce Minister Norman Garcia told AFP that he expects talks to be tough and heated.
Central Americans were dismayed by the first US offer in earlier talks, which Garcia said was below the conditions that Washington currently offers.
US and Chilean officials signed the first free trade treaty between the United States and a South American country -- seen as a stepping stone toward the FTAA -- on June 6.
The United States is also part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) along with Canada and Mexico.Agence France Presse:
