Source:
Focus on the Global South
This report provides a detailed account, and a critical assessment, of the ALBA project to date. October 2006 (pdf version).
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The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) process was formally launched at the first Summit of the Americas, in Miami, in December 1994. At the beginning of that year the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States came into force. The FTAA would mean an expansion of this agreement to include the rest of the continent, except Cuba.
The FTAA talks were organized in nine permanent, theme-based Negotiating Groups: Agriculture; Government Procurement; Investment; Market Access; Subsidies; Services; Intellectual Property Rights; Competition Policy; and Dispute Settlement. There was an official delegate from each country in each Negotiating Group, but the US government clearly dominated the proceedings.
The anti-FTAA movement held that it was not simply a trade agreement, as it was presented officially, but a plan designed by US business and government sectors to broaden and strengthen their control over the peoples and countries in the hemisphere. The entry into force of this agreement would seriously compromised the sovereignty of the countries and peoples, and it would have a negative impact not only on economies and trade, but also on working conditions, social and cultural development, and the environment.
It is no exaggeration, they claimed, to describe the FTAA as an expression of neocolonialism.
Meanwhile, the countries of the Americas continued negotiating the agreement, with different positions and more than a few confrontations. The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), and in particular Brazil, demanded that FTAA negotiations contemplate the asymmetries that exist among the countries involved and that consequently mutual concessions should be made. In this sense, if the countries of the South were willing to open up certain sectors, such as government procurement, the United States and Canada should act accordingly with agricultural protectionism. Several Southern Cone countries, like Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, are major exporters of agricultural products and have enormous difficulties exporting both to the United States and to other markets, due to dumping practices and the domestic aid that Washington pours primarily into agro-industries.
The United States, in the meantime, moved gradually forward through bilateral or regional free trade agreements, signing such agreements with some countries, like Mexico and Chile, and speeding up its negotiations for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia). In this way, a number of parallel treaties was established, which are identical in format and characteristics as an FTAA that serves the interests of Washington.
At the same time, progresist governments in South America, headed by Venezuela and Cuba, forged the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and the Caribbean (Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y El Caribe, or ALBA). Unlike other free trade agreements, the ALBA represents an attempt at regional economic integration that is not based primarily on trade liberalization but on a vision of social welfare and mutual economic aid.
The coming into force of the FTAA was scheduled for 1 January 2005. But since the standstill in the negotiations –basically because of disagreements between US and Brazil on how to structure the agreement- that date has not been reached.
This site contains documents from the process initiated in the 1994 Summit of the Americas to integrate the economies of the Western Hemisphere into a single free trade arrangement.
An overview through the FTAA process since 1994 until today, with related links and documents. SICE (short from its Spanish acronym -- Sistema de Información al Comercio Exterior) is the information technology arm of the Trade Unit of the Organization of American States (OAS).
On November 4th and 5th, 2005 in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, the Organization of American States (OAS) will hold the IV Summit of the Americas, where 34 heads of state from all over the continent will meet - with Cuba expressly excluded. This year, governments aim to give "job opportunities" a central place on the hemispheric agenda but most Latin-American social movements fear the real goal is to push forward the process of trade liberalisation and the implementation of the FTAA. August 2005.
From February 2002 until June 2003, a group of researchers at the MERCOSUR Economic Research Network (Red-Mecosur) worked together to analyze the most sensitive aspects of the negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), seen from the perspective of the South. The general objective of this project was to contribute to an evaluation of the economic impact on the MERCOSUR countries of the possible creation of the FTAA. The final version of the project is presented in this book. 2003.
On 20 and 21 November 2003, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This special report includes key information resources, mostly from the civil society mobilizing in Miami as well as alternative press coverage.
In recent months the Western Hemisphere free-trade pact – the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) - has met with impasse, which subsequently prompted a technical and political review of the process. In this regard, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) examines the past year and the year ahead, with a view to bringing into focus key developments and issues. January 2004.
This paper provides an overview, based on IPRs negotiations in the Americas, of some of the implications of regional and bilateral TRIPS-plus agreements for the current minimum standards under TRIPS (pdf version).
Buffeted by unfair competition from giant US agri-corporations, Mexico's long-suffering farmers are agitating against the trade model that has brought nothing but immiseration upon them. In its place, they are calling for a rural-development pact to be forged that would secure their livelihoods as well as the nation's sustainable development.
bilaterals.org is a collective effort to share information and stimulate cooperation against bilateral trade and investment agreements that are opening countries to the deepest forms of penetration by transnational corporations.
Under the terms of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) treaty and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) now being negotiated, governments will no longer be able to oblige foreign investors to purchase locally, transfer technology, take local partners or train local workers. Citing this and other treaty provisions, “Divide and Conquer,” a new study prepared by Scott Sinclair and Ken Traynor for PSI, shows that the pending treaties dramatically reduce the sovereignty of governments and their ability to regulate in the public interest. January 2005 (pdf version).
The FTAA’s “TRIPS-plus” provisions pose a significant danger to developing countries facing public health emergencies such as human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). October 2002.
Early on, citizens demanded that working groups on democratic governance, labor and human rights, consumer safety and the environment be included in the FTAA negotiations.
What would the consequences be if the FTAA were adopted in its current form? First, governments would lose the right to discriminate in favor of small-scale domestic industries, to require the transfer of skills and technology, and to restrict profit repatriation. If the recent history of Latin America teaches anything, it is that unregulated open markets, rapid import liberalization and the absence of essential government regulation and public services is bad for growth, bad for stability, and disastrous for poverty reduction. November 2003.
In South America, the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) is involved in trade negotiations for the creation of the FTAA. This paper examines how this will affect the countries comprising the MERCOSUR (pdf version).
Its mission is to advocate international economic policies and human rights that support women worldwide in ending poverty in their lives, communities and nations. US.
The campaign was formally launched on 4 February 2002 at the World Social Forum in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, with a march in which around fifty thousand people participated. Site also available in French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Hemispheric Social Alliance is a forum of organizations and social movements of the Americas, created to exchange information, define strategies and promote joint actions, aiming at the search for an alternative and democratic model of development which benefits the people.
We, the delegates of the Second People's Summit of the Americas, declare our opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) project concocted secretly by the 34 Heads of State and government hand in hand with the American Business Forum. Québec, April 19, 2001.
In practice, the FTAA will make it possible to totally de-regulate all of the Latin American economies and consequently dissolve their role as sovereign states. Ricardo Gebrim is a member of Brazil's National Co-ordination for the Referendum Movement.
This paper published by Focus on the Global South analyzes the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) as a substitute to the neoliberal US-supported Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and other Latin American integration efforts such as Mercosur. The ALBA initiative – organized by Presidents Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales of Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia respectively – aims to promote regional integration through “social welfare and equity” rather than trade liberalization. The authors conclude that the widespread support ALBA receives in the region demonstrates that the majority of Latin Americans no longer have faith in the neoliberal model that has left so many mired in poverty. October 2006 (pdf version).
This document reflects an ongoing, collaborative process to establish concrete and viable alternatives, based on the interests of the peoples of our hemisphere, to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). It is the second draft of a document initially prepared for the April 1998 Peoples' Summit of the Americas-a historic gathering of activists determined to change the prevailing approach to trade and investment policy in the Western Hemisphere.
