MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lack of broad agreement pointing toward “FTAA lite”

The absence of broad agreement on several sticky issues is pointing toward the probability that what will be achieved this week in hemispheric trade talks underway here is a bare-bones accord, something of an outline of an “FTAA lite.”

Compromises are being discussed by high-ranking officials who will leave it to their respective trade ministers to approve a statement dubbed the Miami Declaration on Friday.

As a prelude to the ministerial meeting for negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a forum began Monday attended by business leaders from 34 countries in the Americas, all except Cuba.

"Those seeking an agreement on how to negotiate the FTAA are walking a tightrope on which business and political interests must be balanced," former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Heinz Moeller told to the press. "In the United States, for example, President (George W.) Bush is up for re-election in 2004, and both business and labor are pressuring him not to make too many concessions. That means votes," Moeller said.

The Ecuadorian said he expected a "lite" final statement accompanied by announcements by the United States of the onset of negotiations with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and others on bilateral trade agreements.

The head of the U.S. negotiating team, Ambassador Ross Wilson, said again Monday that one of his country's priorities continued to be reaching an agreement that can take effect by January 2005. Wilson told reporters that the agreement should be comprehensive and consistent with the results of earlier rounds of negotiations.

Washington's chief negotiator added that while the treaty had to be flexible and take into consideration the unique circumstances of countries with small economies, the goal must remain free trade. He said the negotiations were still at the intermediate stage, but that progress had been made and productive talks were expected at the end of the week.

For her part, Panamanian Deputy Foreign Minister Nivia Castrellon told EFE that it would "be an arduous effort in which we all hope to be successful but in which the asymmetries between countries must be balanced and a consensus must be reached."

Other analysts, like Carl Cira, the director of the Center for the Summit of the Americas at Miami's Florida International University, said that "the lack of confidence on the part of some Latin American countries and the situation within the negotiations make it hard to achieve the agreement we all hope for." The principals agreed to by the United States and Brazil, already included in the first draft of the Miami Declaration, are being looked at closely by other countries, especially Chile and Canada. Brazilian officials in Miami expressed their country's determination to seek solutions and maintain a flexible position.

At the heart of the difficulties in negotiating the FTAA is the Washington's refusal to negotiate the elimination of subsidies, quotas and tariffs favoring U.S agricultural interests.

The United States maintains that the "agriculture issue" should be discussed at a wider forum, like the World Trade Organization, which is made up of 146 countries.

The ministerial meeting of the WTO held in September in Cancun was unsuccessful because a score of countries - led by Brazil - blocked agreements that did not confront agricultural subsidies and similar issues. Because of this, Brazil has proposed eliminating the topics of services, investment, intellectual property rights and government procurement from the agenda for the FTAA negotiations.

In kicking off the discussions at the business forum, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the younger brother of the U.S. president, emphasized that the agreements "should reflect the particular and unique concerns of each country."