Feb 6, 1998
CARIBBEAN: NO FAST TRACK FOR FREE TRADE
Port of Spain, Feb 4 (IPS/Wesley Gibbings) - The failure of US President Bill Clinton to gain Congressional support for "fast track" authority to speed up work on a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas is generating concern both in the Caribbean and in Latin America.
In his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, Clinton promised to take the issue back to Congress in the hope of receiving a different verdict.
"I am renewing my request for the fast track negotiating authority necessary to open markets and create jobs," Clinton told the Congress. "Whether we like it or not, in ways that are mostly positive, the world's economies are more and more interconnected."
The concern was echoed here Wednesday as senior Caribbean and Chilean academics and public officials assembled to discuss their views on free trade in the Americas.
Chile's ambassador to Jamaica and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Adolfo Carafi, said the Apr. 18-19 FTAA Summit to be held in his country is being seen as one of utmost importance to the growth and prosperity of Latin America and the Caribbean.
"Chile has a high interest in the success of the Summit," he said, noting that Chile is now convinced that "in our future, integration is essential."
Carafi's view is supported by the fact that since Chile signed its economic complementarity agreement with the Latin American grouping, Mercosur (Mercado del Sur) in 1996, it has become the largest investor -- 70 percent -- in the sub-regional grouping.
There is a view that much of Chile's recent growth which has averaged six percent per annum since 1990 is attributable to its increased trade within the Mercosur group.
Trinidad and Tobago's Foreign Affairs Minister, Ralph Maraj says, like Caricom, Chile has "recognised the importance of cooperation in fostering more productive relations between our regional organisations and institutions, in the strengthening of economic and political relations in the region.
"As countries fine-tune their national positions in preparation for FTAA negotiations ... they are becoming more aware of the need to be pro-active and to be part of the decision-making that would determine their economic future regionally and internationally," Maraj said.
However, he said there had been "a general lament in the hemisphere over the lack of fast track authority for the President of the United States of America which is seen as critical to achieving the target set for the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas."
He nevertheless believes that the delay can present some new opportunities. "The resultant hiatus or slowing down of the process, presents us all with an excellent opportunity to further strengthen the building blocks and the coalescence of these blocks in the hemispheric integration process," he suggested.
"We have an opportunity to get closer together before the negotiations really begin. This opportunity, if maximised can ensure a truly negotiated settlement rather than an imposition where all voices, big and small, developed and developing will have had a full say."
The 15-member Caricom grouping had participated fully in the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami where the decision was taken to pursue the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Americas.
The Organisation of American States is playing a leading role in convening a series of meetings ahead of April's commencement of negotiations toward the establishment of a FTAA.
Caricom member states have participated widely in 12 working groups established by Trade Ministers of the 34 participating countries. The aim of the exercise is to establish a FTAA by the year 2000.
Some Caribbean territories have complained of the hectic and expensive process to establish the framework for the Chile negotiations.
Since the Miami Summit, participating Trade Ministers have met three times to formulate and execute a work plan for the FTAA. The first meeting was in June 1995 in Denver, USA, the second in March of 1996 in Cartagena, Colombia and the third in May of 1997 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
At the Belo Horizonte ministerial meeting it was agreed that the FTAA negotiations should be "initiated" in April in Santiago, Chile at the Second Summit of the Americas. The main characteristics of the negotiations will be discussed by the Ministers at their next meeting, in San Jose, Costa Rica next month.
Maraj said the negotiations "constitute a challenge of enormous proportions particularly for our smaller economies."
"The situation," he argues, "is further exacerbated by the added responsibilities presented through membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which constitutes a permanent framework within which member states are bound by the commitments they make in the conduct of their relations."
"If, however, we adopt a collective approach of fairness for all parties involved, our goals could be realised," Maraj added.