TRADE: NGOs, Business Decry ‘Flexible’ FTAA

By Emad Mekay Reprint | | Print |

Emad Mekay

MIAMI, Nov 17 2003 (IPS) - Civil society opponents and corporate boosters of a proposed Americas free trade deal found themselves on the same side Monday – against a U.S.-Brazil proposal to compartmentalise the agreement.

The plan, revealed at Sunday night talks between trade officials that ended prematurely in failure, would let the 34 nations of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) opt in and out of its particular provisions.

“There is an agreement between Mercosur and the United States on this vision of the FTAA that will allow flexibility in certain areas and that countries will be allowed to be engaged in ‘plurilateral’ agreements, so that an FTAA will not impose on the 34 countries the same obligations,” Brazilian diplomat and FTAA negotiator Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares told IPS.

“So, they will be able to choose.”

The members of Mercosur are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. While Uruguay is siding with Washington on the FTAA, South America’s Chile has joined the other Mercosur nations led by Brazil, which is co-chairing the weeklong talks here with the United States.

The FTAA would establish the world’s largest trading bloc, counting some 800 million people.

Washington refuses to cut domestic farm subsidies, which Brazil complains undercut poor farmers by pushing prices to ever-lower levels, and to change its anti-dumping laws, which the South Americans say raise tariffs and other obstacles to Brazilian exports like citrus and steel.

U.S. trade officials have sounded upbeat about the deal, saying they are still working for a comprehensive agreement, but have declined to give details.

Civil society groups censured the U.S.-Brazil proposal, saying it seeks to rescue the FTAA from the impasse created by the substantial difference between countries about the scope of the plan.

“It doesn’t offer a solution that will promote development and poverty reduction for the 220 million people in poverty in the hemisphere,” said Phil Bloomer, who heads the trade campaign for international charity group Oxfam.

“Instead it creates new dangers. It will open up smaller countries to new political pressures to sign bilateral agreements that go further than (World Trade Organisation) WTO agreements and (further) even the current FTAA,” he said.

In fact, Washington is already negotiating a free trade deal with five Central American nations and has announced it wants to include the Dominican Republic in that initiative. Earlier this month Peru and Colombia said they would soon announce the start of free trade talks with the United States.

U.S. business groups, meeting here under the Americas Business Forum, also voiced concerns about the proposal.

Larry A. Liebenow, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told a business luncheon his group opposes the move. ”The past six months have witnessed a hemispheric debate over the basic architecture of the FTAA,” he said.

“Some governments participating in the negotiations have proposed to shut down a number of the FTAA’s nine negotiating groups. This would be a lost opportunity of tragic proportions.”

Reports are that other countries, including Canada, Mexico and Chile, have been reluctant to embrace the new proposal, arguing that the FTAA should benefit all nations equally and not be transformed into a patchwork of arrangements.

Brazilian officials told reporters Monday the deputy trade ministers of the 34 countries agreed on “two-thirds” of the final declaration scheduled to be approved by trade ministers at week’s end. Other issues are still under discussion, they said.

Washington also used the first day of the meeting to go on the offensive against critical civil society groups.

Literature distributed by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) came out strongly in defence of the proposed agreement, which many Latin American countries, economists and civil society groups say is an endeavour to enrich U.S. corporations and establish Washington’s hegemony in the western hemisphere.

The groups complain that the FTAA will lead to fewer jobs, weaken environmental laws and lower labour standards. They also charge the deal will allow corporations to “sue” governments to overturn local laws.

The groups, which include labour unions, student organisations and framers associations, say the agreement is undemocratic because talks are held behind closed doors.

In a booklet, the USTR called accusations from civil society “myths”.

It said that Washington had worked hard to provide an “unprecedented opportunity” for civil society organisations to meet inside the security perimeter in Miami. That invitation was snubbed by some groups as whitewashing.

“But while we opened the door, some protest groups refused to walk through it and are boycotting the civil society forum,” added the statement.