Calgary Herald | By Annette Hester | November 21, 2003
As I arrived here this week for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) talks, I looked for protesters, but couldn't find any. Maybe it was the tight security, the kind that has become commonplace in all multilateral meetings since the Nov. 30, 1999, fiasco at the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, and which since Sept. 11, 2001, has been taken to a new level.
The lack of protests was not surprising, because the talks, which concluded here Thursday, were over before they began. And why would anyone protest? For all intents and purposes, they got what they wanted.
The FTAA seeks to establish a free trade zone from Canada to Argentina. It was originally nicknamed NAFTA on steroids, but it is nothing like its 1994 conception. The obligations are now so minimal, one is left questioning why the planners even bothered.
For Canada (at least, the government and mainstream that believe in free trade), a weakened FTAA is a great disappointment. Last week, Canadian officials were reassuring us that no deals had been reached at the preparatory meetings held in Washington on Nov. 8. They claimed Brazil had attempted and failed to dilute the negotiations with its recommendations that any talks regarding investments, services, intellectual property and government procurement be held at the WTO, and its insistence that at the FTAA level, countries should be able to choose exactly what they would like to negotiate and at what level.
Surprise, surprise -- as our officials arrived in Miami this week, they were handed a draft declaration ready for presentation, which mostly followed the Brazilian suggestions: the FTAA would establish a minimum level of obligations in all disciplines and anything more than that would be left to the discretion of each country to accept or reject participation. Moreover, bilateral and multilateral (includes more than one country but less than the 34 negotiating the FTAA) agreements would become the fabric of the accord.
Canadian Minister of Trade Pierre Pettigrew, in a face-saving exercise, claimed minimal success with his officials' ability to insert one single sentence in the final draft of the declaration. The gist of Canada's contribution is that the substance of what will constitute a minimal common level for the FTAA will be negotiated at the next Trade Negotiating Committee meeting in late January or early February. Nothing I would write home about. But as spin goes, this minimal solution allows U.S. President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to claim victory.
The first consequence of the watered-down FTAA was making headlines before the ministers started to meet. The U.S. announced the start of a flurry of bilateral negotiations, with countries lining up at the door to be next. However, as Canadians are well aware, when you negotiate a bilateral deal with the U.S., you better have something to put on the table -- such as Brazil with its huge potential market -- or else you will probably become chopped liver. Ironically, it is the small countries who are eager to negotiate with the U.S.
As for Canada, we risk losing our competitive advantage in the U.S. market, as others might be able to negotiate entry without having to make the same compromises we had to; or, we simply might not be able to negotiate entry into potential markets as deftly as the U.S. All in all, it will not be a level playing field.
And this is what leads us back to the protesters.
You didn't want an FTAA, but is this what you wanted? It reminds me of the chant that became the protest cry during the last FTAA ministerial held in Quito, Ecuador: "No queremos, y no nos da las guanas, de ser, una colonia Norte Americana." (We don't want, and we don't have the desire, to be, a North American colony.)
I am afraid that is exactly what is about to happen.
Annette Hester, director of the University of Calgary's Latin American Centre, is an observer at this week's FTAA talks.Calgary Herald:
