----- Original Message ----- From: Walter Lippmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CubaNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 1:01 AM Subject: [CubaNews] United States of the Americas? Friday April 13, 7:50 pm Eastern Time TheStandard.com United States of the Americas? By Kevin Roderick Perched above the St. Lawrence River and protected by stone battlements, historic Quebec looks the part of an impenetrable fortress. Just to be sure, a new steel fence - 10 feet high and anchored in concrete - has been erected around the old walled city, right in time for this week's Summit of the Americas. Vivid memories of 1999's Battle in Seattle haunt the hosts of the summit, a gathering of the Western hemisphere's democratic heads of state, including President George W. Bush on his second foray out of the country. The precautions - Canada's largest peacetime security operation - are due as much to the focus of the summit, which begins Friday, as to its powerful attendees. At the top of the agenda is the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, a massive expansion of the NAFTA free-trade zone. It's a topic that promises to create the biggest clash between advocates and opponents of globalization since the World Trade Organization meetings reduced downtown Seattle to a militarized zone 16 months ago. The proposed FTAA is NAFTA on steroids - a mondo version of the 1993 agreement that christened a new era of less-restrictive trade among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It would extend from the Arctic to the tip of Argentina, covering 34 nations and 800 million people with a combined gross domestic product exceeding $17 trillion. That's a lot of new export markets and cheap labor for U.S companies to utilize, so it's no surprise that Cisco Systems, Ernst & Young and other corporations signed on as summit sponsors and will get coveted access to lobby the participants at private social events. Outside the city fence, labor unions and activists of all stripes will stage daily protests, contending that FTAA would give corporations the power to exploit low-paid workers as never before. It also would let them challenge national laws in secretive tribunals, a clause critics say threatens rain forests and other imperiled environments. (Last week, opponents won a minor victory when trade ministers agreed to publish the draft of the FTAA agreement after the summit.) The idea for an American-hemisphere trade zone began during the presidential term of Bush's father, and the younger Bush strongly favors the pact. But he lacks "fast track" authority - in which Congress yields its right to vet specific parts of a trade agreement and gets only one vote, yes or no, on the entire agreement - and it's not clear he will get it. Democrats are sympathetic to union complaints that NAFTA has hurt U.S. workers as American companies have looked to Mexico for cheaper labor, and some House Republicans balk at dropping barriers that protect industries like textiles and agriculture. Without fast-track status, each point of the trade agreement would be subject to congressional approval, a scenario Bush hopes to avoid. Free-trade advocates consider NAFTA a great success. In just eight years Mexico has become the second most important trade partner of the United States, and new President Vicente Fox, the hemisphere's rising star, pins his hopes for Mexico on future free trade and foreign investment. Free traders point to U.S. computer maker Flextronics International, which put a manufacturing plant near Guadalajara in 1997. The workforce quickly swelled to 6,000, and last year Flextronics de Mexico posted over $1 billion in revenue. "We envisioned that Mexico would be one of the company's fastest growth regions, and the prediction came true. It's a very exciting place to be right now," says Hector Kejner, a Flextronics vice president based in Mexico. But critics argue NAFTA hardly promotes an equal exchange. While U.S. companies seek out cheap labor abroad, they are also outbidding other countries for highly skilled workers. Some 1,000 Canadians work at Cisco's San Jose, Calif., campus. "The people we're losing tend to be the best and the brightest,'' complains Jason Clemens of the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver think tank. It's not just the labor pool that is being changed. Many people worry about the effects of globalism on national identities and even traditional social services. Under NAFTA, for instance, United Parcel Service has filed a claim challenging the existence of Canada's national postal service, saying it represents unfair competition. For many nations, the FTAA marks a huge leap into the global market. All 34 nations in the hemisphere, excepting Cuba, would enjoy the benefits - and the drawbacks - of open trade. Fashioning FTAA to work for every economy and every political situation will require intense negotiations. For example, free trade would require small Caribbean nations such as Jamaica to relax the import duties it currently depends on for a large share of its revenue. And then there's Brazil, South America's leading economic power. It already gleans the benefits of free trade as the strongest partner in Mercosur, a trading bloc that also includes Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Brazil supports FTAA in principle but wants the Mercosur nations to negotiate as one unit - the last thing Brazil wants is for its current position to be undercut by a new, larger free-trade area. Despite fears of globalism, most Latin American nations are eager to push ahead with FTAA. And as it stands, there's still plenty of time to work on the sticky spots. The FTAA isn't expected to finish negotiations until Jan. 1, 2005. Daniel Helft, Keith Perine, Garance Burke and Derek Moscato contributed to this report. Visit www.thestandard.com for The Industry Standard's full coverage, news, and analysis on the Internet Economy. Get free email newsletters at www.thestandard.com/newsletters.
