Only united on the map: Free Trade Area of the Americas dreamers wake to the bickering of continents at Puebla summit.

Puebla -- Talks to unite the Americas under a free trade agreement stretching from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego stumbled in February as north and south failed to agree in the same key areas that saw World Trade Organization talks implode in Cancun late last year.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement is meant to be signed by January 2005, but negotiators meeting early last month in the colonial city of Puebla made close to zero headway toward that goal, after a week of strained talks that often dragged into the wee hours.

The most concrete agreement reached by negotiators from 34 countries? To return to Puebla in early March and give it another try.

NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE

The Puebla talks reached an impasse after key negotiating blocs, the U.S.-led Group of 14 nations, or G-14, and the Mercosur bloc of South American nations, led by Brazil and Argentina, failed despite intense discussions to agree on touchy issues like agriculture market access and export subsidies.

World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Cancun failed late last year after rich and poor nations could not agree on agricultural issues.

Negotiators in Puebla say, and perhaps pray, that the FTAA talks will not follow in Cancun's footsteps.

"There will have to be some modification of positions, recalibration of the content and the level of ambition," Peter Allgeier, a co-chairman of the meeting and deputy U.S. Trade representative, told reporters after the Puebla meetings wrapped up.

Negotiators were meant to leave Puebla with a first tier, "common set" of rules and obligations for all nations as well as a set of rules and procedures for second-tier trade agreements for countries wishing to establish deeper trade links.

While talks progressed on procedural issues, negotiators on the whole emerged with more disagreement than agreement.

ARGENTINE BEEF, BRAZILIAN ORANGES

The Mercosur bloc stuck to demands for a complete opening of the hemisphere's markets to the full range of their mostly agriculture products, while the U.S.-led bloc sought exclusions.

Martin Redrado, the Argentine Trade secretary, said during the meetings that Mercosur had given as much as it was willing to and that the G-14 would have to cede more in exchange for a shift in the Mercosur stance.

Redrado, one of the first high-level negotiators to say the meetings had reached an impasse, and other Mercosur officials, said the G-14 vision for an FTAA was flawed because it pushed for only partially free trade.

Mercosur wants the G-14 to even the hemisphere's trade playing field, eliminating or neutralizing the effects of subsidies that make it difficult for other producers in the region to compete with those in the United States in particular.

"We are asking that in the products where they have more domestic support, like in beef or dairy products or soya, that trade tariffs are eliminated immediately," Redrado told reporters during a break in meetings.

"We are not asking for the moon here. We are asking for something that could be done within the hemisphere, and so we think it is a very realistic approach to subsidies."

RELUCTANCE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The G-14, which also includes Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, worry that removing domestic subsidies could also hurt the region's ability to compete against subsidized exports from Europe and Japan.

And while negotiators suggested in Puebla that those exports be taxed to prevent the region from being flooded with cheaper goods from the European Union, sources say Caribbean nations objected, saying they needed to maintain access to those imports.

The early February talks were the first high-level meeting to work on the FTAA since trade officials from 34 nations met in Miami in November and agreed to the two-tier approach to a FTAA.

Talks were tentatively scheduled to resume in the first week of March.

"The delegations need more time," the FTAA trade negotiations committee said in a joint communique of cochairs after Puebla talks closed. "We all need to consult in our capitals and among delegations."

U.S. MAKES THREATS

Immediately following the fruitless Puebla summit, U.S. trade officials said they planned to negotiate a trade agreement with the other nations in the G-14, in part to spur Mercosur trade bloc members, especially Brazil, to be more flexible in FTAA talks.

G-14 nations say the Mercosur bloc will need to give more on market access for services, government procurement and intellectual property rights in exchange for more market access in agriculture and merchandise.

Non-governmental organizations like the Hemisphere Social Alliance, which claims to group some 200 social groups and networks from 30 countries, are calling the Puebla meeting "another Cancun."

"The process continues," Argentina's Redrado said. "This is not another Cancun."

But more work will be needed to ensure a free trade area of the Americas is born.

"In the course of the next weeks, the co-chairs [of the FTAA trade negotiations committee] will undertake consultations aimed at facilitating the successful continuation of negotiations," Allgeier said after Puebla.

For most of the countries involved in FTAA talks, the question is not if an agreement can be reached, but if it will be reached before the January deadline.

"There's a basic willingness to compromise. We just have to find the right language," said a delegate from a Caribbean nation who asked to go unnamed.

George Terrats is a Mexico City-based freelance writer.