MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

4 + 1 Discussions in Washington

After several days preparations Mercosur and United States, 4+1 trade talks will officially begin this Monday in Washington. Foreign Affairs Ministers from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay will be meeting with US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to agree on a common agenda for the coming months

"We want the Mercosur-US trade talks to become a distinctive signal of the Bush Administration", said Mr. Zoellick. The Washington meeting was agreed last September 4th. during the Cairns Group conference held in Punta del Este, Uruguay. American authorities refused to cancel the meeting in spite of the bombings, "Business as usual", was the reply. The 4+1 and the Chile-US trade talks want to advance regional trade and will definitively give content to the White House Rose Garden agreement of June 19th., 1991, during former President Bush's Sr. time in office. The Rose Garden agreement was a framework for trade and investments discussions in Mercosur. Currently the Bush administration is trying to convince Congress to approve the Trade Promotion Authority, TPA, the former fast track, that enables the Executive to discuss trade agreements that can only be accepted or rejected by Congress, but not amended. TPA is essential for Mercosur talks, but also for the coming World Trade Organization round to he held in Qatar, where United States has to show the world that terrorist attacks have not paralysed the rest of the country's international agenda. However US analysts believe that globalisation in its full liberal concept as was sponsored by the United States died on September 11th, and Washington will now adopt a more regional focus, mainly Latinamerica and Europe