U.S. Trade Deals Bitter to Latin Americans

[Judi Lynn]

April 26, 2006, 1:48AM
U.S. Trade Deals Bitter to Latin Americans

By JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia — With the rise of China and stiff competition from Europe, the United States has been flexing its economic muscle in its own backyard.
Since 2003, when attempts to secure a hemispheric-wide free trade zone broke down, U.S. negotiators have signed bilateral, free trade agreements with nine Latin American nations. Two more, with Ecuador and Panama, are in the pipeline.

Despite skepticism among U.S. labor groups and Congress, those agreements have been an unqualified success for American exporters. For example, U.S. exports to Chile have almost doubled, to $5.2 billion (euro4.19 billion) last year, in the two years since the two countries signed a deal, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.

But among Latin Americans, the dollar diplomacy has left a bitter taste.

"Nobody who sat across the negotiating table from the United States came out of the talks feeling they got a fair deal," said Peter Hakim, president of the nonpartisan Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "And many feel they've been outright cheated."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3820388.html

[fasttense]

1. Oh boy what great deals for South American countries

We get to export our goods to them and get to hire their poor at $4 a day. Not to mention we will employ all their children over 2 years old. How can anyone complain? :sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

2. "And many feel they've been outright cheated"

is undoubtably a fair assessment of the situation.

I would think that the majority of their exports under the trade agreement are fruit and vegetables etc. Problem is that they cannot get a fair price for them due to farm subsidies within the USA.

I truly believe that eventually the South American countries will form something akin to the EEC and be perfectly happy to simply trade between themsleves wherever possible.

China's current interjection is hardly likely to help the USA but may well improve the lot of the South American countries. Not too much point in **** bleating about it. You screw people - they get their own back given time.

[jimbot]

5. EEC Analogy

Howdy edwardlindy...one clarification.
You stated: "I truly believe that eventually the South American countries will form something akin to the EEC and be perfectly happy to simply trade between themsleves wherever possible."
I don't know that this analogy holds. The problem is China. The South American countries can only become lower cost providers of agricultural products and, if they are lucky enough to have it, oil. They simply can't compete with China in most manufacturing. The standard of living in many of these countries will stay fairly low and this will continue to depress the prices of the agricultural products...they will need to seek out trading partners that can purchase their products to expand their markets (although this doesn't have to be the U.S., it could be Europe but we are a little easier to trade with than Europe for non EEC members). Unless they can figure out a way to compete in the labor or product markets, things will be difficult for them.
Mexico is a perfect example...if you look at NAFTA, it was supposed to be a big boon for the Mexican economy and it was...the Mexican economy experienced double digit growth and exports to the U.S. grew dramatically. Then came China and now the Mexican economy is slowing down...there is a good article about this at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4056&t=outsourcing

I'm rambling a little, but the differences between the EEC and South and Central America are:
The EEC has many multinationals that benefit by the global economy and South America doesn't.
The EEC competes globally in the white collar labor market and, for the most part, South America doesn't.
The EEC has many wealthy trading partners within the EEC...who are the wealthy trading partners in South America?

I'm not saying that U.S. trade is a great thing for them...I'm basically saying they are screwed for the time being regardless of what they do.
Cheers,
--JT

[HereSince1628]

3. So why sign on to the agreements?

The article provides a very un-informative "for much of the region the price of saying no to Uncle Sam remains too high."

What price? Threatened military intervention? I doubt it.
Denial of critical goods the nations can't produce for themselves? I can't imagine what that would that be?

Doesn't it seem more likely, they want access to American consumers and American negotiators use that as a powerful lever to insure something like access to Latin American consumers of US goods? Isn't that just what American opponents of off-shoring want?

[jukes]

4. that *must* be it!

oh, & they want our protection from terra!

[HereSince1628]

7. Good job for so early in the AM.

If you think gaining access to our market isn't the motivation for them to accept a trade agreement why not offer a reasonable alternative.

Even Kucinich argued for bi-lateral negotiations rather than WTO and NAFTA type trade associations. It's up to negotiators and ratifiers to be advocates and accept or reject the compromises that result. One of the levers US trade negotiators have is access to our market why shouldn't they use it?

[jukes]

11. i believe a *small* sector

believe as you say, but the governments are being less responsive to the elites and are seeing deeper into america's real aims; ie, hemisphere domination.

like all empires, this 1 has about used up it's credibility, and south america is beginning to see their own viability in world commerce.

our loss of face in the mideast is accelerating that process.

[cantstandbush]

6. Serves them right if they got cheated. They should have stuck together.

When will they ever learn that divided they fall.

[Judi Lynn]

8. You may remember they tried to protest Bush trade deals in Miami..

America's enemy within

Armed checkpoints, embedded reporters in flak jackets, brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrators. Baghdad? No, Miami

Naomi Klein
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian

~snip~
Last week, Bush's two sons joined forces to try to usher in that new world by holding the FTAA negotiations in Florida. This is the state that Governor Jeb Bush vowed to "deliver" to his brother during the 2000 presidential elections, even if that meant keeping many African-Americans from exercising their right to vote. Now Jeb was vowing to hand his brother the coveted trade deal, even if that meant keeping thousands from exercising their right to protest.

Despite the brothers' best efforts, the dream of a hemisphere united into a single free-market economy died last week - killed not by demonstrators in Miami but by the populations of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, who let their politicians know that if they sign away more power to foreign multinationals, they may as well not come home.

The Brazilians brokered a compromise that makes the agreement a pick-and-choose affair, allowing governments to sign on to the parts they like and refuse the ones they don't. Washington will continue to bully countries into sweeping trade contracts on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but there will be no single, unified deal.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1093291,00.html

[robcon]

9. Free trade is a great deal for both parties.

The only problem is that it's not free enough, as long as we have those stupid sugar quotas.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Issues involved for Latin American in the FTAA, to refresh memories:

Published on Monday, November 17, 2003 by the Inter Press Service
US Moves to Squeeze FTAA Opponents
by Emad Mekay


WASHINGTON - The United States might be trying to re-write its strategy towards a threatened trade deal in the Americas by adding more pressure tactics to its old technique of doling out economic benefits to Latin American countries.

Trade ministers from 34 countries will meet next week in Miami for the eighth ministerial meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a pan-American deal that would create the largest trading bloc in the world stretching from Canada to Argentina -- with the notable exception of Cuba -- by January 2005.

But the meeting is seen on the road to an impasse as the United States and Brazil, co-chairs of the current round of talks, lock horns over the scope of the negotiations.

Brazil, on behalf of some South American countries, wants to exclude areas such as copyright and patent protection, investment and government procurement and leave them for broader global trade talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The United States refuses to discuss agriculture subsidies, which South American countries say are depressing crop prices and creating unfair competition with U.S. farming companies.

U.S. farmers also oppose talks aimed to reduce domestic subsidies within the FTAA because they complain that would not oblige other competitors from developed countries like the European Union (EU) and Japan to make similar cuts.

Similar disagreements brought global trade talks to a resounding halt in Cancun, Mexico in September, when 21 developing countries banded together to protest rich nations' failure to drop their hefty agricultural subsidies. The talks eventually collapsed.

Fearing a re-run of the Cancun episode in Miami, and under pressure from U.S. corporations, Washington has recently sought to modify its tactics without budging on its original demands.

The United States now appears more aggressive and threatening as it seeks to isolate the opposing camp in Latin America by forging bilateral trade agreements.
(snip/...)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1117-06.htm

[400Years]

12. Keep up the good work Judi

You are adding content that helps fill in the picture for people.

It is important to remind everybody of these things.

Thanks.