Free Trade, or Countervailing Power for the Americas

摘要

Although iraq has been dominating the headlines and the TV screens, our media and our government have been giving little attention to the bubbling cauldron of Latin America. In this vast region south of the U.S. border, plagued with recurrent economic crises and tied to the U.S. cycles of boom and bust, economic hopes and fears are contending fiercely. The several countries compete with each other but are now seeking trade cooperation with each other, and collectively with the United States. Pending since 1994 is a proposed pact for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which is scheduled to be formulated in 2005. For some parties this pact is a long-sought ideal, but for others it is a threat and anathema. Meanwhile, on the American side, business interests are looking to Latin America for enlarged export markets and low-cost imports, low-paid immigrant workers, and profitable fields for overseas investments. This huge economic cauldron was brought to a boil during the past few months by the sudden financial and economic crisis in Argentina and social/political upheavals in Venezuela and Bolivia. The pressures were discussed in three big conferences that were not widely recognized in this country. The first of these meetings was held in Miami early in last December, bringing together leaders of the Caribbean and Central American nations seeking to form a free-trade bloc among themselves and with the United States.