Free Trade Area of the Americas - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) ( (ALCA), (ZLÉA), (ALCA)) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

but Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. In the last round of negotiations, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, United States, in November 2003 to discuss the proposal. http://www.ftaa-alca.org/Ministerials/Miami/Miami_e.asp The proposed agreement was an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement

North American Free Trade Agreement

The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

(NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Opposing the proposal were Cuba, Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, Dominica

Dominica

Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...

, Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

and Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

(all of which entered the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean...

in response), and Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

.

Discussions have faltered over similar points as the Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

(WTO) talks; developed nations seek expanded trade in services and increased intellectual property

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

rights, while less developed nations seek an end to agricultural subsidies

Agricultural subsidy

An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy paid to farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of such commodities...

and free trade in agricultural goods. Similar to the WTO talks, Brazil has taken a leadership role among the less developed nations, while the United States has taken a similar role for the developed nations.

Overview

Talks towards the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas began with the Summit of the Americas

Summit of the Americas

The Summits of the Americas is a series of international summit meetings bringing together the leaders of countries in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Neither the elderly leader nor a representative from Cuba participated in this summit...

in Miami on December 11, 1994, but the FTAA came to public attention during the Quebec City Summit of the Americas

Quebec City Summit of the Americas

The 3rd Summit of the Americas was a summit held in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, on April 20--22, 2001.This international meeting was a round of negotiations regarding a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas...

, held in Canada in 2001, a meeting targeted by massive anti-corporatization and anti-globalization

Anti-globalization

Criticism of globalization is skepticism of the claimed benefits of the globalization of capitalism. Many of these views are held by the anti-globalization movement however other groups also are critical of the policies of globalization....

protests. The Miami negotiations in 2003 met similar protests, though perhaps not as large. The last summit was held at Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

, Argentina, in November 2005, but no agreement on FTAA was reached. Of the 34 countries present at the negotiations, 26 pledged to meet again in 2006 to resume negotiations, but no such meeting took place.

In previous negotiations, the United States has pushed for a single comprehensive agreement to reduce trade barriers for goods, while increasing intellectual property protection. Specific intellectual property protections could include Digital Millennium Copyright Act-style copyright protections, similar to the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Another protection would likely restrict the reimportation or cross-importation of pharmaceuticals, similar to the proposed agreement between the U.S. and Canada.

Brazil has proposed a measured, three-track approach that calls for a series of bilateral agreements to reduce specific tariffs on goods, and a hemispheric pact on rules of origin

Rules of origin

Rules of origin are used to determine the country of origin of a product for purposes of international trade. There are two common types of rules of origin depending upon application, the preferential and non-preferential rules of origin...

and dispute resolution processes. Brazil seeks to omit the more controversial issues from the agreement, leaving them to the WTO.

The location of the FTAA Secretariat was to have been determined in 2005. The contending cities are: Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Galveston

Galveston, Texas

Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. , the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of...

, Houston

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

and Miami in the United States; Cancún

Cancún

Cancún is a city of international tourism development certified by the UNWTO . Located on the northeast coast of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico, more than 1,700 km from Mexico City, the Project began operations in 1974 as Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR Cancún is a city of...

and Puebla

Puebla, Puebla

The city and municipality of Puebla is the capital of the state of Puebla, and one of the five most important colonial cities in Mexico. Being a planned city, it is located to the east of Mexico City and west of Mexico's main port, Veracruz, on the main route between the two.The city was founded...

in Mexico; San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...

; Panama City

Panama City

Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...

, Panama; and Port of Spain

Port of Spain

Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...

, Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

. The U.S. city of Colorado Springs also submitted its candidacy in the early days but subsequently withdrew. http://www.ftaa-alca.org/tnc/candidate_e.asp Miami, Panama City and Puebla served successively as interim secretariat headquarters during the negotiation process.

The failure of the Mar del Plata summit to set out a comprehensive agenda to keep FTAA alive has meant that there is little chance for a comprehensive trade agreement in the foreseeable future.

Membership

The following countries have been allowed membership of the Free Trade Area of the Americas http://www.ftaa-alca.org/busfac/clist_e.asp:

History pre-1994

In the 1960s there were several modest and humble attempts at regional integration in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The approach of these regional initiatives was to lower tariffs internally while maintaining high trade barriers against non-members. Regional initiatives included the 1960 Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), the 1960 Central American Common Market (CACM), the 1965 Caribbean Free Trade Association

Caribbean Free Trade Association

The Caribbean Free Trade Association was organised to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation which lasted from January 3, 1958 to May 31, 1962.The Caribbean Free Trade Association was...

(CARIFTA), and the 1969 Andean Pact.

Many North American countries experienced a debt crisis in the 1980s, such as Mexico in 1982. These debt crises contributed to a "lost decade" in terms of economic growth, the adoption of numerous stabilization and structural adjustment

Structural adjustment

Structural adjustments are the policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in developing countries. These policy changes are conditions for getting new loans from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, or for obtaining lower interest rates on existing loans...

programs with the International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

, and a widespread re-evaluation of interventionist, protectionist and inward-looking development strategies. In 1984 the U.S. unilaterally lowered its tariffs against many states in the Caribbean Basin

Caribbean Basin

The Caribbean Basin is generally defined as the area running from Florida westward along the Gulf coast, then south along the Mexican coast through Central America and then eastward across the northern coast of South America. This region includes the islands of the archipelago of the West Indies...

, as part of its Caribbean Basin Initiative

Caribbean Basin Initiative

The Caribbean Basin Initiative was a unilateral and temporary United States program initiated by the 1983 "Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act" . The CBI came into effect on January 1, 1984 and aimed to provide several tariff and trade benefits to many Central American and Caribbean countries....

.

Many Latin American countries took non-discriminatory steps towards trade liberalization in the late 1980s (lowering tariffs against all countries, not just selected ones). This was done partly to follow through on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...

(now the World Trade Organization) commitments, but also unilaterally as a domestic policy choice or at the urging of the International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

, the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, the Inter-American Development Bank

Inter-American Development Bank

The Inter-American Development Bank is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean...

, and United States Agency for International Development

United States Agency for International Development

The United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas...

. Average tariff

Tariff

A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....

levels fell to about 20% in the region by the end of the 1980s.

Another wave of regional trade agreements took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1989 the AP agreed to move towards freer trade within the region, as did CACM and the Caribbean Community

Caribbean Community

The Caribbean Community is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy...

(Caricom) in 1990. The Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur

Mercosur

Mercosur or Mercosul is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people,...

) notably including Brazil was established in 1991 with similar plans for freer regional trade.

Canada and U.S. entered into the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1989, and the beginning of negotiations towards free trade between Mexico and the U.S. were announced the next year in 1990. These negotiations were soon expanded to include Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Several Latin American countries approached the U.S. after the announcement, seeking to negotiate their own bilateral free trade agreements with the U.S., but the U.S. refused to negotiate more bilateral PTAs in the region until NAFTA was implemented. Instead, in June 1990 U.S. President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

announced the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative with the goal of achieving hemispheric free trade by 2000.

In 1994 NAFTA came into force and the 1988–1994 Uruguay Round

Uruguay Round

The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of Multilateral trade negotiations conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , spanning from 1986-1994 and embracing 123 countries as “contracting parties”. The Round transformed the GATT into the World Trade Organization...

of GATT negotiations were completed. The goal of hemispheric free trade, which had been renamed the FTAA, was postponed until 2005 primarily at the request of Canada and the U.S.

Distrust on United States of America's policy

One of the major difficulties to develop a free trade in the Americas, is the distrust Latin American countries have towards The United States of America. This comes from an obscure century old pronunciation of president William Howard Taft who was president from 1910-1913. One which has been referred to in several books:

Also when Taft was secretary of war under the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

explained that foreign policy

Distrust of multinational companies

The major concerns of both businesses favoring free trade and people opposing free trade are rooted in a strong distrust of multinational companies by developing countries. This distrust arises out of several historical events in which multinational companies and governments that supported them played a major role in perpetuating injustice and causing suffering and death.

American Marine commander Smedley D. Butler headed many expeditions into Central America which were described in the biography Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History:
A list of examples can be mentioned where both North American and British companies have used their influential powers and government powers to bend hosting countries decisions in their favor. In some cases military threats have been used if such nations do not abide by their rules, and in other cases coups have been developed to take down governments creating civil wars and suffering that still can be felt. Some of the most known cases are:

Banana massacre was the killing of United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

's workers that occurred on December 6, 1928 in the town of Ciénaga
Ciénaga, Magdalena
Ciénaga is a municipality and a town in the Magdalena Department, Colombia, second largest population center in this department, after the city of Santa Marta. It is situated at 11° 00' North, 74° 15' West, between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Caribbean Sea and the Ciénaga Grande de Santa...

near Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. An unknown number of workers died after the Colombian government sent military forces to end a month-long strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

organized by the workers' union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

in order to secure better working conditions. Minor Keith, UFC's president, used to say "We have sea ports, railways, lands, buildings, fountains... dollar flows, English is spoken and our flag is up." The government of United States had threatened with a marine invasion if Colombian government did not act to protect this USA corporation's interests.
Argentina was one of the historical battle scenarios between English and U.S. Oil companies. The agreements to set prices did not prevent Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

and Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

from playing on this country by sometimes violent means: The Argentine Congress was preparing to vote on the oil nationalization law, the September 6, 1930, when the nationalist leader Hipólito Irigoyen was brought down from the presidency by forces within Argentina. Ramón Castillo
Ramón Castillo
Ramón S. Castillo Barrionuevo was a conservative Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from June 27, 1942 to June 4, 1943...

's right wing government fell to Robustiano Patrón Costas in June 1943 when he was about to sign an agreement that supported the extraction of oil by American capital. In September 1955, Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

went into exile when Congress was about to approve a grant to the California Oil Co. Arturo Frondizi
Arturo Frondizi
Arturo Frondizi Ercoli was the President of Argentina between May 1, 1958, and March 29, 1962, for the Intransigent Radical Civic Union.-Early life:Frondizi was born in Paso de los Libres, Corrientes Province...

triggered several sharp military crises in August 1959 by announcing the call for tenders offered to extract oil. Frondizi made several concessions that benefit U.S. companies, and British interests were not unrelated to his fall in March 1962. Arturo Illia invalidated the franchises and for that was taken down in 1966. The following year, Juan Carlos Ongania
Juan Carlos Onganía
Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo was de facto president of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as military dictator after toppling, in a coup d’état self-named Revolución Argentina , the democratically elected president Arturo Illia .-Economic and social...

passed a hydrocarbons law that favoured U.S. interests in this national battle.
Oil has not only caused coups in Latin America; it was also a contributor to the Paraguayan Chaco War
Chaco War
The Chaco War was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the northern part of the Gran Chaco region of South America, which was incorrectly thought to be rich in oil. It is also referred to as La Guerra de la Sed in literary circles for being fought in the semi-arid Chaco...

(1932–1935). On May 30, 1934, the Louisiana senator, Huey Long
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...

, rocked U.S. with a fierce speech in which he denounced Rockefeller's Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

of New Jersey for provoking the conflict and for funding the Bolivian army to seize the Paraguayan Chaco, necessary to build a pipeline from Bolivia toward the river presumably oil-rich: "These criminals have gone further and have hired murderers", he said. The Paraguayans were marching to the slaughter, for their part, driven by Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

as they moved northward; the soldiers were discovering the holes made by the Standard Oil on the war stage. Thus the Chaco War was fought by american standard oil against British shell.
The overthrow of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

's democratically-elected President Jacobo Árbenz
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán
Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as Defense Minister of Guatemala from 1944–1951, and as President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954....

in 1954 by Dwight Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world...

for its intent to expropriate four hundred thousand acres from the United Fruit Company and nationalizing some others. Allen Dulles, CIA director and brother Foster Dulles, had a long lasting business relationship with the United Fruit Company.
In 1954, Brazilian a dictator Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...

, known by the nickname of "The Father of the Poor" killed himself. Great pressure had been put on him from the USA for him deciding to sell iron to the communist states of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. Three years later, the Hanna Mining Corporation bought more than half the shares of Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

gold mines. Huge pressure was then exercised on the new Brazilian government, in particular on Vargas' successor, president Janio Quadros
Jânio Quadros
Jânio da Silva Quadros , , was a Brazilian politician who served as President of Brazil for only 7 months in 1961.-Career:...

: not only Hanna's director, lawyers and advisers were also high level member of the Brazilian Government, but also George Humphrey, Hanna's president, was Treasury Secretary of the USA and director of the Eximbank. When Quadros attempted to restore Minas Gerais to Brazilian Treasury, the military, directly supported by USA, took down Quadros in March, 1964. Dictator Castello Branco
Castello Branco
The name Castello Branco may refer to* Camilo Castelo Branco ; Portuguese writer, publishing over 260 works in this time; committed suicide in 1890....

took over and Hanna's men took positions as ministers and Vice-president of Brazil. Immediately after, Castello Branco gave Hanna one more business to profit from: the iron mines in Paraopeba, and 49% of the Carajás mines to US Steel.
In 1964, in Bolivia, military dictator René Barrientos
René Barrientos
René Barrientos Ortuño was a Bolivian politician who served as his country's Vice President in 1964 and as its President from 1964 to 1969....

, opened up concession to foreign investment by blood, killing miners, in particular for giving the Phillips Brothers mining right on the Matilde mine with highly pure content of silver, lead and zinc, and paying the Bolivian state only 1.5% on sells. Latter, in the 1970s, General Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres González was a Bolivian socialist politician and military leader. He served as President of Bolivia from October 7, 1970 to August 21, 1971. He was popularly known as "J.J."...

hoped to retain civilian support by moving to the left and nationalized back the waste-processing operation of the Catavi tin mines and the Matilde zinc mine, and he ordered the "Peace" Corps, a United States program, out of Bolivia.
The CIA played a role in the defeat the 1964 democratically-elected president Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Berret Jagan was a Guyanese politician who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964, prior to independence. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997.- Biography :The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan...

in British Guyana. The minerals had much to do with the fall of the socialist government of Jagan. This Guyana was the fourth largest producer of bauxite in the third place among Latin American producers of manganese. The new regime ensured the interests of the Arkansas-based company Aluminum Company of America in Guyana were at no risk: the company could continue taking bauxite, and sold it itself to the same price as 1938, although since then the price had multiplied aluminum.
The overthrow in 1973 of the Chilean democratically-elected President Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

for nationalizing, among others, the copper mines, law unanimously approved by the parliament. Thousands of massacres and human right abuses followed as dictator General Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

took power. However these deaths were perpetrated by Chileans on Chileans. Later the implementation of the Chicago economic model on Chile by Pinochet greatly helped Chile become one of the economic engines that it is today despite its small size.

The inherently left-leaning distrust of multinational corporations in Latin America comes out of the sentiment that as a buyer of a goods or services the US is somehow always exploiting Latin America. The US generally believes that such transactions are mutually beneficial, while in fact without US demand the products produced in these countries would have little value.

Protectionism and free trade

Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Hughes Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best known works are Memoria del fuego and Las venas abiertas de América Latina which have been translated into twenty languages and transcend orthodox genres: combining fiction, journalism, political analysis, and...

in his book Open Veins of Latin America
Open Veins of Latin America
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent is a book written by Uruguayan journalist, writer and poet Eduardo Galeano, and published in 1971.- Summary :...

explains that among the factors that contributed to the rapid grown of industry in United States of America has been the strong protectionist

Protectionism

Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...

laws and protectionist measures put in place to protect its industry and market inside the country and strong protection of their international companies in the international stage. Once USA internal protectionism produced great results and its industry rose powerful in the world stage, USA has been looking for free trades to open up even more the possibilities for its corporation knowing that they are strong enough to compete or take over those weak ones in developing countries. Recent Free Trade Agreements has always considered national protection of any economy sectors as unfair competition.

Galeano quotes a statement from the president of the United States Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...

given around 1865:
Although its important to recognize that the context of what protectionism is and isn't has dramatically changed in the intervening 165 years.

Current support and opposition

Huge movements, lead by more than 20,000 human rights activists, have opposed the FTAA at every stage of its development. A coalition of senior citizens, labor groups, environmentalists, human rights advocates and peace advocates as well as concerned citizens have protested both major meetings of the FTAA.

A vocal critic of the FTAA is Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

, who has described it as an "annexation

Annexation

Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...

plan" and a "tool of imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

" for the exploitation of Latin America. As a counterproposal to this initiative, Chávez has promoted the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

(Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas, ALBA), vaguely based on the model of the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

, which makes emphasis on energy and infrastructure agreements that are gradually extended to other areas finally to include the total economic, political and military integration of the member states
Also, Evo Morales

Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...

of Bolivia has referred to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, as "an agreement to legalize the colonization of the Americas."

On the other hand, the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , known popularly as Lula, served as the 35th President of Brazil from 2003 to 2010.A founding member of the Workers' Party , he ran for President three times unsuccessfully, first in the 1989 election. Lula achieved victory in the 2002 election, and was inaugurated as...

, and Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner , commonly known as Cristina Fernández or Cristina Kirchner is the 55th and current President of Argentina and the widow of former President Néstor Kirchner. She is Argentina's first elected female president, and the second female president ever to serve...

, have stated that they do not oppose the FTAA but they do demand that the agreement provide for the elimination of US agriculture subsidies

Subsidy

A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...

, the provision of effective access to foreign markets and further consideration towards the needs and sensibilities of its members.

One of the most contentious issues of the treaty proposed by the United States is with concerns to patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

s and copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

s. Critics claim that if the measures proposed by the US were implemented and applied this would prevent scientific research in Latin America, causing as a consequence more inequalities and technological dependence from the developed countries. On the issue of patents, some critics of the FTAA, such as Canadian activist Maude Barlow

Maude Barlow

Maude Victoria Barlow is a Canadian author and activist. She is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, a citizens’ advocacy organization with members and chapters across Canada. She is also the co-founder of the , which works internationally for the human right to water...

, have accused the US of attempting to patent Latin America-made inventions. On the left-wing Council of Canadians web site, Barlow wrote: "This agreement sets enforceable global rules on patents, copyrights and trademark. It has gone far beyond its initial scope of protecting original inventions or cultural products and now permits the practice of patenting plants and animal forms as well as seeds. It promotes the private rights of corporations over local communities and their genetic heritage and traditional medicines." http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/MBonFTAA.html

On the weekend of April 20, 2001, the 3rd Summit of the Americas was a summit

Summit (meeting)

A summit meeting is a meeting of heads of state or government, usually with considerable media exposure, tight security and a prearranged agenda.Notable summit meetings include those of Franklin D...

held in Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, Canada. This international meeting was a round of negotiations regarding a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Current status

The FTAA missed the targeted deadline of 2005 as planned. This followed the stalling of useful negotiations of the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2005. Over time, some governments not wanting to lose a chance of hemispheric trade expansion moved in the direction of establishing a series of bilateral trade deals. The heads however have planned a future summit called the Sixth Summit of the Americas

Summit of the Americas

in Cartagena, Colombia in 2012.

Agreements

There are currently 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere, stretching from Canada to Chile that are standing members of the FTAA. The Implementation of a full multilateral FTAA between all parties would be eased by enlargement of existing agreements. North America, with the exception of Cuba and Haiti (which has participated in economic integration with the Caricom since 2002) are almost finished to set up a subcontinental free trade area. At this point Agreements within the Area of the Americas include:

Previous agreements

: Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement

Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement

The Free Trade Agreement was a trade agreement signed by Canada and the United States on October 4, 1988. The agreement, finalized by October 1987, removed several trade restrictions in stages over a ten year period, and resulted in a great increase in cross-border trade...

(1988; superseded by the NAFTA)-

Dominican Republic (superseded by DR-CAFTA)-

Trinidad and Tobago (superseded by a Costa Rica - CARICOM FTA).

Current agreements

Mexico-

United States: North American Free Trade Agreement (1994)

El Salvador

Guatemala

Honduras

Nicaragua

Dominican Republic

United States Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA; incl. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic; 2008)

United States: United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement (2004)

United States: United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (2007)

Colombia: United States-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (2011)

Panama: Panama – United States Trade Promotion Agreement (2011)-

Mexico-

Chile-

Mexico-

Costa Rica-

Mexico-

Chile-

Caribbean Community-

Nicaragua-

Uruguay-

Peru-

Colombia-

Brazil-

Paraguay-

Uruguay -

Venezuela - Mercosur

Mercosur

(1991)

Colombia

Ecuador

Peru - Andean Community (1969)

Proposed agreements

Active negotiations-

Caribbean Community: Canada-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Free Trade Negotiations-Central America (CA4TA - Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras) Canada-Central America (CA4TA) Free Trade Negotiations

Negotiations on hold-Mercosur

Mercosur

: CARICOM bilateral trade agreements

Ecuador: US-Ecuador Free Trade Agreement-North American Free Trade Agreement, first discussed in 1993–1994

Security pacts

-Central America-

Mexico (Mérida Initiative

Mérida Initiative

The Mérida Initiative is a security cooperation agreement between the United States and the government of Mexico and the countries of Central America, with the declared aim of combating the threats of drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and money laundering...

Caribbean Community-

Dominican Republic (Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean

Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean

The Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean is a regional-level dialogue with the stated purpose of providing greater cooperation on security and economic issues...

Mexico-

United States (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was a region-level dialogue with the stated purpose of providing greater cooperation on security and economic issues. The Partnership was founded in Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005 by Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, Vicente Fox,...

)

External links

Articles and papers

Hemisphere Summit Marred by Violent Anti-Bush Protests by Larry Rohter, The New York = [Times, November 5, 2005
FTAA Delayed, Not Over. By Eric Farnsworth, Council of the Americas, December 2005
Whither the FTAA? (November 10, 2005), Guyana Chronicle Newspaper
Canada, Chile thwart U.S.–Brazilian plan, AP news article
Myths of the FTAA, FoodFirst.org Institute for Food and Development Policy
Why say no to FTAA, bilaterals.org
The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Canada and the Americas

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Overview

Membership

History pre-1994

Distrust on United States of America's policy

Distrust of multinational companies

Protectionism and free trade

Current support and opposition

Current status

Agreements

Previous agreements

Current agreements

Proposed agreements

Security pacts

See also

External links

Articles and papers