MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Another US-Brazil round

The OAS general assembly in Santiago de Chile will be the scenario for another round of United States-Brazil talks, in anticipation of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's official visit to Washington.

According to the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Brazilian Minister Celso Amorim will be holding talks with his United States counterpart Colin Powell, particularly regarding the Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA, currently presided by United States and Brazil, and scheduled to become effective in 2005.

At the end of May US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick visited Brazil expecting to speed FTAA talks and meeting President Lula da Silva.

He was unable to meet the President and Mr. Amorim said that "even when Brazil will not abandon the FTAA project, it's not in a hurry to implement the association since the country has other priority urgencies".

One of those urgencies is strengthening Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), and another ensuring that the disparity in development of the economies involved in a future FTAA are considered previously.

Nevertheless Mr. Zoellick in Brasilia expressed his optimism about the FTAA 2005 timetable.

While in Santiago Mr. Amorim is expected to hold talks with his counterparts from Mercosur, associate members Chile and Bolivia, Canada and the Andean Community of Nations, CAN, that includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela and which Brazil is anxious to integrate to Mercosur creating a only South American block.