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Subject: [mobilize-globally] The Trade Wars Continue, 4/1/01
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[mayday2k] The Trade Wars Continue, 4/1/01
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Subject: The Trade Wars Continue, 4/1/01
From: Weekly News Update <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
Date: 4/1/01 10:54 PM Mountain Daylight Time
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The Trade Wars Continue: Quebec, FTAA and Fast Track
A Weekly News Update on the Americas Supplement
April 1, 2001
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This report is produced by Weekly News Update on the Americas,
which is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of
Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012,
212-674-9499, email <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
Feel free to reproduce this supplement, or reprint or re-post any
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The heads of state of 34 of the 35 independent nations in the
Western Hemisphere are scheduled to meet in Quebec City, Canada,
Apr. 20-22 in the third "Summit of the Americas"; as in the two
previous meetings, Cuba has not been invited. The summit's main
focus will be on generating an agreement around the Free Trade
Area of the Americas (FTAA), a plan for bringing all 34 countries
into a huge trade bloc modeled on the three-way trade bloc
created by Canada, Mexico and the US in the 1993 North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
A hemispheric trade bloc was first proposed in June 1991 by then-
president George Bush (1989-1993), who urged the US "not [to]
lose sight of the tremendous challenges and opportunities right
here in our own hemisphere" [see Update #22]. His successor,
former president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), vigorously promoted
the plan at the first summit, held in Miami in December 1994; the
meeting ratified the FTAA concept and set 2005 as the year the
trade agreement would take effect [see Update #254]. The April
1998 summit, in Santiago de Chile, marked the official opening of
negotiations for the FTAA. But the concept was already running
into trouble: labor, social and human rights groups countered the
official event with a three-day "People's Summit of the
Americas," while Clinton had to tone down his FTAA rhetoric
because of trade pacts' growing unpopularity back in the US [see
Update #429].
* Quebec: Planning for Protests
Thousands of activists, principally from Canada and the
northeastern US, are gearing up for massive anti-neoliberal
protests in Quebec like the ones that turned the November-
December 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting
in Seattle into a public relations disaster for the Clinton
administration.
Operation Quebec Spring (OQP 2001), a coalition of more than 30
regional organizations, is organizing a People's Summit for Apr.
17-22, with conferences, workshops, teach-ins and demonstrations.
Two other groups, the Montreal-based Anti-Capitalist Convergence
(CLAC) and the Quebec-based Summit of the Americas Welcoming
Committee (CASA), are working together on a "Carnival Against
Capital" that will include workshops, teach-ins, concerts,
conferences, cabarets, street theater, protests and direct
action; it is to culminate in a Day of Action on Apr. 20.
[AlterNet article by Darryl Leroux, 2/20/01]
Canadian authorities have responded with what is being billed as
the largest security operation in Canadian history. More than
5,000 agents from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the
Quebec province police and local municipal forces are slated to
work during the three-day summit in an operation that the RCMP
estimates will cost over $22 million. The authorities plan to
erect a 2.4-mile long, nine-foot high metal fence around some 4
square miles of downtown Quebec. There will be security passes
for the 5,000 official summit delegates, the nearly 3,000
accredited media workers and some 25,000 Quebec residents who
live or work in the security perimeter. The RCMP says it has
rented all vacant apartments and houses within the security
perimeter and has reserved all hotel rooms within 55 miles--a
total of 11,000--to avoid leaving anything vacant for protesters.
The RCMP forced out several non-governmental organizations that
had reserved hotel accommodations and conference rooms up to a
year in advance.
Other measures include: by-laws in Quebec City and the suburb of
Sainte-Foy under which protesters could be arrested for wearing
scarves or covering their faces; plans to move the 600 inmates in
the Orsainville provincial prison during the summit to make room
for arrested protesters; and efforts to keep US activists out of
the country. In January, Canadian immigration officials turned
back 10 New York City-based activists who were trying to attend a
strategy meeting organized by CASA. "It is my job to protect the
Canadian economy," one official joked as the activists were
heading back to the US.
Protest organizers are working on responses to the police
operation. OQP 2001 is trying to rent halls and gymnasiums to
house protesters; it and CASA are planning an "Adopt a Protester"
program among Quebec city residents. [Leroux 2/20/01; National
Post (Toronto) 2/26/01; Canadian Press 2/17/01] Some US activists
hope to enter Canada on Apr. 19 at the bridge at Cornwall,
Ontario, where the border cuts through the Akwesasne territory of
the Mohawk indigenous nation. Mohawk activists say they will open
the bridge to the US protesters in an action supported by Ontario
Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), the Cornwall Labor Council
(CLC) and the Kingston-based People's Community Union (PCU). [Eye
Weekly (Toronto) 3/20/01]
* FTAA: Looking Like Swiss Cheese
Some observers say that the biggest problems for the FTAA will
come not from the protesters but from disagreements among the
trading partners themselves. The US and Chile want to push the
FTAA implementation date forward to 2003. Brazil--which has the
second largest economy in the hemisphere and a major commitment
to Mercosur, a Southern Cone trade bloc--wants to hold to the
2005 deadline. Brazil also has had a trade spat with Canada over
subsidies to the two countries' competing aerospace industries
and over Canada's allegations in February that Brazilian beef is
not safe from mad cow disease.
Meanwhile, Canadian trade minister Pierre Pettigrew has said he
will not sign a deal with an investor protection mechanism like
NAFTA's controversial Chapter 11, which allows corporations to
sue countries and, in some cases, get laws overturned. Some
Caribbean states which derive the majority of their income from
import tariffs are pushing for aid in setting up income tax
systems to make up for the shortfall when the trade pact goes
into operation. The draft texts on the FTAA framework haven't
been made public, but one person who has seen them described them
as having so much "bracketed text"--areas where the countries
couldn't agree--that they look like "Swiss cheese."
The US is getting impatient. During his Senate confirmation
hearing earlier this year, US Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick said he wants "to send a signal to the countries of
Latin America that we want open markets, we want to work with
them to try to achieve this, but we're not going to be held back.
We've got to get off the dime on this." [Dow Jones Newswires
3/1/01; Globe and Mail (Toronto) 3/5/01]
* Zoellick and Trade Agenda 2001
Trade Representative Zoellick is known as a tough negotiator and
sharp political operator. He is a protege of James Baker III,
treasury secretary and then secretary of state during the
administrations of the senior Bush and former president Ronald
Reagan. His negotiation experiences include talks over ending the
US-sponsored contra war in Nicaragua and the reunification of
Germany. Zoellick spent five weeks in Tallahassee, Florida last
November and December working with Baker in the Republican
campaign against challenges to the slim majority in Florida that
brought current president George W. Bush to power. [Washington
Post 1/13/01]
The new trade representative is being asked to promote a number
of trade agreements and laws through the US Congress over the
next year: 1) the US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, which backs the
enforcement of national labor and environmental laws with trade
sanctions, a provision generally opposed by Republicans; 2) the
US-Vietnam bilateral agreement, which would allow the US to
extend most favored nation status to Vietnam on an annual basis;
3) the renewal of the three-year Andean Trade Preference Act
(Bush promised to work towards the expansion of the Andean Trade
Preferences Act after a Feb. 27 meeting with Colombian president
Andres Pastrana, whose Plan Colombia is receiving $1.3 billion in
US military "aid"); and 4) "fast track" authority, under which
the US president is free to negotiate trade agreements without
oversight from Congress. With fast track, Congress is limited to
voting for or against the final agreement; proponents say this is
indispensable for the FTAA negotiations. [Inside US Trade 3/2/01]
* Fast Track: Stalled in the Station?
Fast track, always unpopular with labor and environmental
activists, is likely to be Zoellick's toughest challenge.
Following the Jan. 1, 1994 implementation of NAFTA, which was
negotiated with fast track authority, Clinton failed to win fast
track renewal in three tries--in 1994, 1997 and 1998--leading
then-deputy US trade representative Ira Shapiro to write a song,
"50 Ways to Fail at Fast Track," to the tune of Paul Simon's "50
Ways to Leave Your Lover." The Clinton administration's only
major trade victory after NAFTA was the Caribbean Basin Trade
Partnership Act (CBTPA), passed in May 2000, nearly five years
after it was first proposed [see Updates #534, 559].
Zoellick, who is reportedly planning to introduce a new fast
track bill in July, is working on new strategies for the
legislation. His first move was to rename it "trade promotion
authority." Other possibilities include "bundling" fast track
with other legislation--such as the Jordan and Vietnam bilateral
agreements--that may be more popular with Congress. Zoellick's
fast track plan will probably include a renewal of Trade
Adjustment Assistance for US workers who lose their jobs because
of trade pacts. It might also include measures to help the US
steel industry, which has been complaining about competition from
foreign imports. [Wall Street Journal 3/16/01]
A major strategy for selling fast track is likely to be the
introduction of labor and environmental protection clauses, a
favorite idea of the Democrats and much of the labor movement and
an anathema to the Republicans and big business. In late February
the conservative Business Roundtable changed course and endorsed
protection clauses, possibly including fines on manufacturers
that abuse workers or despoil the environment, and conditioning
lower tariffs and export financing on worker protections. "The US
has got to get back in the game." says Boeing CEO Philip Condit,
chair of the Roundtable's trade committee. [Business Week 3/5/01]
But many observers are skeptical about labor and environmental
clauses, given the record of NAFTA's labor and environmental side
accords. A major focus is the Mexican government's failure to
prevent the rigging of a Mar. 2 election against an independent
union at the US-owned Duro Bag Manufacturing plant in Rio Bravo
in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas [see Update
#581]. "The Duro election strips away any idea that the NAFTA
process can protect workers rights," declared Martha Ojeda,
director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM),
which supported the independent union. For Robin Alexander,
director of international relations for the US-based United
Electrical Workers (UE), the election "shows that for both the US
and Mexican governments, when the chips are down, their interest
in promoting investment and free trade clearly outweighs any
commitments they make about labor rights." [Article by David
Bacon posted 5/14/01]
Michael Dolan of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a group
which has organized much of the opposition to neoliberal trade
pacts in the past, is confident that what he calls the
"mobilzation against NAFTA for the Americas" will defeat fast
track. The movement "didn't start in Seattle and won't end in
Quebec City," he wrote in Mar. 19 email to activists. [GTW
posting 3/19/01]
END
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