Related Articles
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For more information on the protests see:
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http://quebec. indymedia.org
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www.stopftaa.org
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www.igc.org
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www.indymedia.org
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For information on the FTAA see:
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www.zmag.org/ a20quebec.htm (exellent collection of essays and reports)
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www.stopftaa.org /info/index.html (collected essays and leaflets on the FTAA)
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Brief guide to the Free Trade Area of the Americas
On Sunday 22nd of April 2001 34 American leaders (only Cuba ‘missing’) agreed to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005, and pledged to strengthen democracy and human rights in the region. President George W. Bush concluded that trade liberalisation is the ‘best weapon against tyranny and poverty’[1]. Neither the fancy words, the summit communique [2] nor the mainstream reports about ‘violent protests’ [3] reveal very much about the actual FTAA agreement.
The first step towards the FTAA was taken in 1994 when the 34 participating nations came up with an agreement to work towards providing free market access for goods and services to the entire American continent by 2005. At the ‘Santiago Summit’ in Chile in 1998 a Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), consisting of vice ministers of trade from every country was set up. Together with the Tripartite Committee (the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)) TNC set up nine working groups to deal with most important sectors of the agreement: agriculture, services, investment, dispute settlement, intellectual property rights, subsides and anti-dumping, competition policy, government procurement and market access.
The document itself has been kept secret from the public and members of the parliaments involved. Corporations on the other hand have had constant access to the process. In the US over 500 corporate representatives have security access to the FTAA through the Trade Advisory Committee system. The Trade Advisory Committee has been shaping the agreement to meet the needs of US corporations. The ABF (American Business Forum) has also been in the centre of influence during the whole process. Every time the FTAA meets to negotiate, the ABF meets at the same place ending their meetings just as the FTAA meeting begins. Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said that they were the leaders of the FTAA process and that the government's role was to take whatever policy steps were needed to best suit the business interests in the Hemisphere when he spoke on an ABF meeting [4].
NGOs’ demands to participate, on the other hand, has been rejected and instead a Committee of Government Representatives on Civil Society was established to ‘to maintain transparency in the negotiating process and to conduct the negotiations in such a manner as to broaden public understanding and support for the FTAA.’[5]. Two other non-negotiating comities have been set up, the Committee on Small Economies and the Joint Government-Private Sector Committee of Experts on Electronic Commerce. The first has a diffuse role of creating ‘the opportunities for the full participation of the smaller economies and to increase their level of development.’[6]. The Joint Government-Private Sector Committee of Experts on Electronic Commerce, representing a growing financial market, has a very important role to play in the negotiations
Since the negotiations are secret it is hard to predict the exact consequences of the FTAA. But it is clear that it will build on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), proposed WTO agreements and parts of the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). The FTAA would introduce the proposed service agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) - the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) [6] - with the powers of the MAI. It will also incorporate NAFTA’s infamous chapter 11, which give corporations the right to sue governments through legally binding trade tribunals. The most famous example of the use of this section is the U.S.-based Ethyl Corporation forcing the Canadian government to pay $13 million for lost revenues caused by the Canadian ban on the gasoline additive MMT (a known toxin that damages the human nervous system) and to abandon the law. But there are several more examples such as the Mexican government having to pay the U.S. company Metalclad Corp. $16.6 million for having refused the operations of a toxic waste disposal site in a residential area [7].
The FTAA, with its provisions on competition policy, government procurement, market access and dispute settlement, together with services and investment, will weaken regulation and strengthen corporations. It will be the natural successor of NAFTA in North America and the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) introduced earlier into Latin America by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To get an idea of the effects that the FTAA will have, we only have to look at what consequences these have brought to the American continent. Latin America now has a higher poverty rate and workers have a 27% lower buying power than in 1980 [8]. In Mexico under NAFTA, 8 million families have sunk from the middle classes into poverty and one million more Mexicans now work for less than the minimum wage, as compared to before NAFTA. It is also estimated that 28,000 small businesses have shut down due to the entrance of foreign companies into Mexico [9].
Compared to the likely impacts of FTAA, the protests in Quebec were positively restrained.
Footnotes
[1] Fiancial Times, Western hemisphere leaders agree to free trade deal, by Guy de Jonquières and Edward Alden Apr 22 2001
[2] Summit communiqué:
• Agreement to conclude by January 2005 a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would take effect by December that year.
• Preliminary draft negotiating texts of the FTAA to be released after the summit as part of a commitment to ‘transparency and to increasing and sustained communication with civil society’.
• Leaders will consult on whether any country that suffers a ‘disruption’ of its democratic system should be allowed to participate in the summit process.
• The role of the Organisation of American States in defending representative democracy to be reinforced.
•Countries agree to promote compliance with International Labour Organisation core standards and to ‘consider’ ratifying the fundamental ILO agreements ‘as appropriate’.
For the full text see http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/world/22WIRE-DECLAR.html?searchpv=site05
[3] ‘Protesters against globalisation - who believe free trade helps richer nations get richer at the expense of both the poor and the environment - clashed with the police…’ Western hemisphere leaders agree to free trade deal, by Guy de Jonquières and Edward Alden Financial Times Apr 22 2001
[4] Turning Point Road Show on the FTAA http://www.stopftaa.org/info/info_turningpoint.html
[5] The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Canada and the Americas by Maude Barlow, available at The Council of Canadians, www.canadians.org
[6] see Corporate Watch article Newsletter issue 1 http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue1/nl1gats.html
[7] Seven Year under Nafta by Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy studies, www.ips-dc.org
[8] The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Canada and the Americas by Maude Barlow, available at The Council of Canadians, www.canadians.org
[9] Turning Point Road Show on the FTAA http://www.stopftaa.org/info/info_turningpoint.html
[10] Re-politicizing the Violence of Globalization and Free Trade, by Ajay Gandhi
[11] Quebec City: Policing the people by Judy Rebick, http://quebec.indymedia.org/viewarticle.ch2?articleid=1473&language=english
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