Jamaica's Prime Minister P.J. Patterson (right) greets Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on Monday. Mr. Patterson is now in Argentina attending the Americas Summit on trade issues in the region. - REUTERS
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (AP):
A SHOWDOWN over free trade loomed large as leaders from across the Americas yesterday flew to Argentina to find solutions to trade woes crippling Latin American and Caribbean economies.
Amid Washington's insistence that liberalised trade will ease the region's ills, thousands of protesters were streaming nearby the Mar del Plata seaside resort, preparing to criticise United States President George W. Bush. The White House has come under pressure for its push to create unfettered free trade and a huge new trade zone stretching from Alaska to Patagonia, the southern tip of Chile and Argentina.
Bush arrived late yesterday in Mar del Plata for the fourth Summit of the Americas, a two-day gathering with 31 fellow leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean. Their main focus at the summit today and tomorrow is how to create jobs for a region where unemployment and underemployment have been a prime concern for decades.
But Bush wants to re-ignite stalled talks to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that would overtake the European Union as the world's largest trade zone.
The talks, however, have been stalled for years and government officials were wrestling over how to deal with the FTAA in meetings at the summit site. On Wednesday, they were still bickering over whether the final summit declaration would include key language on when high-level FTAA negotiations might begin again.
Argentine negotiator Victor Hugo Varsky said negotiators were "advancing very slowly" as they decide what priority the FTAA should have in the summit's final declaration.
"Some countries don't want any mention," he said. "Others want to progress toward a trade accord."
Latin American allies Venezuela and Cuba are also expected to bring pressure on U.S. trade policies.
