MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Americas can't agree on free trade and FTAA

The deep controversy over free trade and how to promote job creation was evident late Thursday with the arrival of US President George Bush to Mar del Plata, Argentina for the IV Americas Summit scheduled to begin Friday: the final declaration draft remained “almost finished” with “two or three paragraphs still open”.

Argentina's Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Jorge Taiana admitted Thursday afternoon that the extenuating process of reaching an agreed only declaration text was "close" but still had several hurdles ahead.

Furthermore summit sources revealed that Argentina's Foreign Affairs minister Rafael Bielsa had a long half hour phone talk directly with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on board Air Force One en route to Argentina in an attempt to iron out differences on time for the official launching Friday of the Americas 34 leaders Summit.

The stumbling block is free trade and more specifically the US sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas which has split the summit, on one side host Argentina and its Mercosur partners, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, who oppose the reopening of negotiations acknowledging that conditions are not favorable to the initiative which was originally meant to take effect at the beginning of this year.

On the other side the White House together with Mexico and Chile insist on a specific mention to FTAA in the final declaration with the renewal on hemispheric trade talks scheduled to begin no later than April 2006.

Even more radical is Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez who has declared FTAA "dead and buried" and insists that one of the principal objectives of the conclave in Mar del Plat is "to definitively" bury FTAA, the free trade market idea launched in 1994 and planned to extend from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Actually even President Bush before leaving Washington admitted to correspondents from several Latinamerican countries that FTAA negotiations were "stalled" ... (but) at this point in time, the Doha round really trumps the FTAA as a priority because (it) not only involves our neighborhood (but) the whole world."

Although the conclave will reaffirm the "shared vision" of a hemisphere united by democracy and free trade, U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that the crucial meeting on international commerce will be the World Trade Organization December conference in Hong Kong.

The core of the matter is agriculture and a drastic reduction of farm subsidies demanded by Mercosur members and which the United States supports conditioned to similar cuts from the European Union, Japan, South Korea and other farm protectionist countries. Rich countries' subsidies amount to over a billion US dollars per day dramatically distorting international agriculture produce markets.

But in spite of all the struggling on free trade and the FTAA, President Bush will have some successes to show: Friday he meets with the presidents from those countries who have signed the CAFTA-DR trade accord - that is, the Central American nations, except for Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

A similar meeting is scheduled with the presidents from the Andes Community, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, all of which are in the process of finalizing a similar free trade agreement with United States.

At 10:00 in the morning President Bush will hold a private interview with host President Nestor Kirchner working on an "open agenda", according to Argentine government sources. As is happening world wide with most summits by mid morning a counter "People's Summit" will be launched with the arrival in Mar del Plata of a train with thousands of protestors who will hold a rally in the city's 40.000 seats football stadium to be addressed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Among the distinguished protestors are the former Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, Bolivian left wing presidential candidate Evo Morales, Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez and Bosnian filmmaker Emir Kusturica.

The train named "Alba Express" will be joined by hundreds of buses with members of political and social organizations linked to anti-globalization and anti-imperialist movements. The banners will read "NO FTAA, NO Bush".

An estimated 8.000 Argentine police and special forces have isolated 200 blocks in downtown Mar del Plata where the hub of the summit will take place. Air, sea and land patrolling plus hundreds of security guards from the visiting leaders have converted the South Atlantic resort into an inexpugnable fortress.

According to the Argentine press, the US delegation security operation involves 55 aircrafts, US Navy vessels, satellite monitoring and months of planning with dozens of agents in situ.