MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil: We'll only accept FTAA if it suits our interests

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the two candidates vying to succeed him agree that Brazil will only accept the creation of the Free-Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) if the pact takes their country's interests into account.

"Brazil has self-esteem and will know how to defend its interests no matter who wins the elections," Cardoso said in statements appearing Wednesday in the Brazilian press

Despite their ideological differences, both governing-coalition candidate Jose Serra and leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will face other in an Oct. 27 runoff, used virtually the same language as the president to describe their positions on the free-trade agreement.

The two presidential hopefuls said the FTAA will only be possible if it serves the interests of both the United States, which is promoting the project, and the rest of the hemisphere. They also said it was essential for Washington to lift the barriers affecting Latin American exports to the United States.

"We want to protect our industrial and agricultural interests as well as our trade surplus. We want for Brazil everything they (the United States) want for themselves," said Lula, currently far ahead in the polls.

His rival was equally blunt. "People think I will accept the FTAA no matter what, but my position has always been very clear," Serra said. "We will only continue negotiations if it is in Brazil's interest. And Brazil's interests include, for example, having the United States lift its barriers." Cardoso and the two presidential candidates spoke out a day after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said Washington would negotiate bilateral trade pacts with individual Latin American nations if Brazilian opposition impedes the creation of the FTAA.

Brazil's president said his country was anxious to avoid international isolation and would therefore continue with all existing trade negotiations, some of which, he pointed out, could lead to agreements benefiting the nation's producers. "We have production capacity and are competitive internationally. We aren't afraid of the market," Cardoso said. "We should not be afraid to talk with other countries. We don't have to be arrogant. We can be cooperative and seek to become partners," the president added.

Brazilian business leaders said Tuesday that while they support the creation of a hemispheric free-trade area, they were prepared to seek alternatives if the FTAA initiative does not give sufficient weight to Brazil's national interests.

"If hemispheric integration is delayed, we have the alternative of strengthening Mercosur (comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and of associating as a bloc with the European Union," said the new president of the national industry confederation, Armando Monteiro Neto.

The FTAA, provisionally set to take effect in 2005, proposes a gradual freeing of trade and integration of markets involving every country in the Americas save communist Cuba.