FTAA: not dead.

Too much emphasis has been made on the "winners and losers" at the Americas Summit, giving far too much credit to the opponents of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), instead of recognizing the tremendous achievement of the 29 nations that reaffirmed their commitment to a hemisphere-wide trading bloc.

To suggest that the summit may not have been a great victory for [U.S. President George W.] Bush fails to recognize that without the president's steadfast and unflinching support of the FTAA in the face of vocal minority opposition, leaders of the 29 countries would not have taken the position that the agreement is worth pursuing.

Drawing nations together behind a common commitment for a hemispheric community of trade is no small feat and relies on the expectation that most leaders are sensible enough to recognize that for their economies to grow and for millions to move out of poverty, a give-and-take trading partnership in the Americas is essential.

Even four of the remaining five nations that were not ready to support moving forward with the FTAA included the caveat "at this time" until the outcome of the Doha Round of multilateral talks on global trade is more clear. Two days after the conclusion of the Summit, Argentina Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernandez publicly announced that there is nothing wrong with the FTAA, but that the only issue is trying to implement the agreement in the current context and under the current conditions.

Moreover, the day following the summit during the post-meeting press conference with President Bush in Brasilia, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that he would continue to support the FTAA but stressed the importance of focusing on the Doha Round first and concluded his comments by highlighting that U.S.-Brazil relations are today better than ever.

Observers of the Americas trade scene are right to hint that Brazil and the other Mercosur nations--Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay--that adopted the wait-and-see attitude with the FTAA may really be posturing for when negotiations restart on the hemisphere-wide agreement. That's certainly the prerogative of those nations, but it doesn't mean the other 29 supporters of the FTAA should sit idly by and allow the few opponents to dictate the agenda.

Editor's note: In the October 2005 edition of LATIN TRADE, an opinion article published elsewhere by Eduardo Engel of Yale University and Daniel Kaufmann of the World Bank was published in our letters page. It was not prepared for nor submitted to the magazine by Engel or Kaufmann. LATIN TRADE regrets the error.

Jorge L. Arrizurieta

President, Florida FTAA