MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US-Brazil anticipate Miami success.

The proposal of creating a variable-speed (“flexible”) Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA, seems to have gained ground in the current ministerial meeting in Miami in spite of Chile, Mexico and Canada who prefer a more committed and rigid accord.

However this still hast to be worked out among the 34 countries who will be approving and signing the Miami declaration this week.

"Some countries prefer to maintain the (negotiating) format as it was before", said Brazilian delegation head Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares who met with representatives from Chile and Mexico to debate the wording.

"No attempt has been made to change the paragraphs at the core of the declaration". The agreement proposal is based on the development of "a common and balanced stand on rights and obligations applicable to all countries." This basis would allow various nations to undertake "different levels of commitment," so that market access benefits are proportional to the commitments each country is willing to accept, said U.S. negotiating team head, Ambassador Ross Wilson.

De Macedo Soares said that the system would open "the possibility of initiating multilateral talks at the discretion" of each of the 34 FTAA participating nations in the hemisphere, including Mercosur-US bilateral discussions.

Brazil and the United States that are chairing the current round of negotiations seem now committed to keep to the original timetable of 2005 although they had serious frictions in previous FTAA meetings and the recent failed WTO talks held in Mexico. An understanding between the US and Brazil to promote a differently phased free trade project was reached ten days ago during a meeting between Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.

Washington until then was insistent on including in FTAA negotiations the issues of intellectual property protection, foreign investment and government procurement, which Brazil opposed. Brazil on the other hand demanded the discussion of the thorny issue of the huge subsidies handed out to U.S. farmers something the United States believes should be discussed in the framework of WTO with European Union and Japanese participation

. US subsidies to agriculture exports to Latinamerica are estimated in 5,5 billion US dollars plus the 20 billion in direct aid to US farmers.

"All countries must make concessions ... Not all of us can be pleased with everything," said the chief Brazilian negotiator.

Apparently the toughest task is drafting article seven of the final declaration that must contemplate the possibility of bilateral or pluri-lateral before a full hemispheric understanding is reached.

This means countries can involve in discussions regarding nine main topics, market access; services; agriculture; investments; government procurement, subsidies and compensatory rights; competition policies; controversies tribunal and intellectual property.

"This will enable pluri-lateral agreements for those countries with a greater willingness to discuss investments, services, intellectual property, and also of those countries that wish to negotiate other issues such as agriculture, agro-business production and antidumping legislation, as we do", indicated Mr. Martín Redrado, Argentina's main trade negotiator. "We need an avenue sufficiently wide as to have room for all countries and their interests".

Meantime US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick announced the commencement of bilateral trade negotiations with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Panama and the rest of Central America.

"We're committed to an integrated hemispheric economy and there are several routes, FTAA is not the only route", said Mr. Zoellick.

"Simultaneous moves are the name of the game in international trade. All complement each other and none are exclusive" underlined Argentine representative Redrado.

"Making FTAA rules and timetable more flexible will allow differences to be resolved in the framework of WTO without slowing down the process of hemispheric integration", indicated Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.