AMERICAS: Ministers Meet for Another Trade Test

By Emad Mekay Reprint | | Print |

Emad Mekay

MIAMI, Nov 17 2003 (IPS) - A high-profile meeting to discuss a pan-American trade zone opened here Monday amidst tight security and doubts about the fate of the embattled plan.

Thousands of participants are in this Florida State beach city for talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a regional pact that would encompass 34 countries and stretch from Argentina to Canada to include some 800 million consumers.

Joining trade ministers and officials are thousands of the FTAA’s opponents, who themselves have become divided by a proposal to engage them in the official process.

Parts of downtown Miami were blocked to regular traffic and businesses closed around a handful of luxury hotels where trade ministers, businessmen and civil leaders are meeting for the eighth round of the trade talks, an ambitious project to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Policemen in grey overalls and weapons strapped to their thighs dotted the area or stood firmly behind barricades as helicopters hovered above. Only limousines, emergency vehicles and participants with identification badges were visible in the area.

But outside the security zone thousands of protesters and activists from environmental groups, labour unions and student and farmers’ organisations were gathering for the event, saying they plan dozens of protest events, including street marches and a major demonstration.

Many carried banners denouncing the FTAA as an attempt at U.S. hegemony while others complained that the agreement would impoverish farmers and workers, and degrade the environment in both rich and developing nations.

The protesters, who plan dozens of workshops, seminars and teach-ins, face their own test in Miami.

In 1999 these groups left their mark on the global trade and financial arena for the first time, their protests in Seattle helping to defeat negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

That is why FTAA organisers will for the first time host a meeting here between civil society groups on one hand and business executives, academics and government officials on the other.

Organisers are calling the event, ‘Americas Trade and Sustainable Development’ (ATSDF), an “unprecedented milestone in the FTAA process”.

But many civil society groups, including Public Citizen and the International Forum on Globalisation, have already boycotted it, calling the gathering a U.S. attempt to whitewash the trade deal.

Others that will attend complain that their recommendations will be non-binding and that civil society participants have been carefully selected to ensure support for the official process.

Participating groups include Transparency International, Oxfam America, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Doctors Without Borders, among many others.

The official meetings, which end Friday, include a parallel two-day gathering of business leaders from the western hemisphere. The executives will present their proposals to trade ministers, who are due to start formal meetings Wednesday.

Topping the ministers’ agenda is a budding trade conflict between the United States, the main force behind the draft FTAA, and South American countries led by Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, over the scope of the agreement.

The current round of negotiations is a critical point for both developing countries and for rich nations like the United States and Canada, if they are to sign a deal by Jan. 1, 2005 as planned.

The developing countries, which banded together and blocked the U.S. agenda – leading to September’s failed global trade talks in Cancun – are again resisting what they say is a limited corporate-backed U.S. trade plan.

Facing an election year in 2004, the administration, led here by savvy U.S. Trade representative Robert Zoellick, is already refusing to meet at least two of Brazil’s demands.

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.

Despite early lobbying and pressure from Washington, unofficial meetings were not off to a positive start. Attempts by the United States and Brazil to reach a compromise hit a snag Sunday night.

The two trade giants said they had reached an understanding that would allow nations to choose which parts of the deal they would commit to and which they could ignore.

Chile and Canada made a counter-proposal demanding that countries unwilling to accept tariff cuts should be penalised, rather than being able to ignore the measures.

Deputy trade officials ended the meeting early after failing to reach a consensus.

Adhemar G. Bahadian, the Brazilian who is co-chairman of the meeting, told the ‘Miami Herald’ the meeting was “inconclusive”.

“To return to the previous situation is to go back to the impasse,” he said.