MONTERREY, Mexico (AFP) - NAFTA partners the United States, Canada and Mexico pressed leaders from across the Americas to embrace trade to fight poverty, and to renew support for a pan-American free-trade zone.
"Over the long term, trade is the most lasting road to prosperity," US President George W. Bush argued at a ceremony opening the Summit of the Americas in this industrial city in Mexico's northeast.
But with half of Latin America and the Caribbean living in poverty, some leaders here doubt the planned Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) can address their countries' deep social strains fast enough, or without an active government role in fighting poverty.
"The best way to eradicate poverty is to encourage trade between nations. It brings people hope and it provides opportunities," Bush earlier told a press conference with summit host Mexican President Vicente Fox.
"Obviously, that must be coupled with anticorruption measures," Bush said, adding "I hope those who have expressed opposition will look at the facts. NAFTA has lifted lives in some parts of our neighborhood."
Like a cheerleader, Fox chimed in, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement: "Mexico is a passionate supporter of the FTAA ... and we are working in favor and actively so that it will be put in place as soon as possible."
NAFTA "has been successful for Mexico. We are very much pleased with what has happened" in past decade, Fox said, crediting NAFTA with increasing Mexican wages and spurring job growth.
Fox also said leaders wanted a good FTAA "that would take development to the countries where there is greatest poverty in our region."
"We are in challenging times," new Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said, venturing that with closer regional trade ties "we will achieve concrete results to improve the lives of all of the citizens of the Americas."
Brazil and other countries are urging the United States to drop agricultural subsidies, and Brasilia says it first wants to better consolidate its Mercosur trade bloc before rushing into an FTAA it fears will not be in its interests.
Meanwhile, the United States, European Union and many Asian nations are scrambling to increase trade with the natural resource-rich region.
The FTAA aims to create the world's largest free trade area with a market of some 800 million people. In November, FTAA negotiators unveiled an interim deal dramatically scaling back the original plan for a free trade bloc of 34 nations agreed to in 1994.
The result is a face-saving "FTAA a la carte," in which the United States reaches out to individual countries ready for free trade to underscore some progress, and shows flexibility with those unwilling or unable to join the group by 2005. Washington wants to ensure further ground is not lost.
Brazil, which chairs FTAA negotiations with the United States, has rejected the US effort to include in the final summit statement a reaffirmation of the goal of finishing FTAA negotiations by January 1, 2005. Venezuela does not want the trade deal mentioned in the document due to be released Tuesday.
Bush also urged cooperation on seeking a peaceful political transition in Cuba, the only country in the region with one-party communist rule.
"Dictatorship has no place in the Americas," Bush said. Cuba was not invited to the gathering.
The US president also urged other countries to match his plan announced Monday to deny public officials guilty of corruption, access to the United States. On the bilateral front he is aiming to mend a once-close personal relationship with Fox.
US-Mexican relations cooled after Fox failed to support the US-led war on Iraq. Earlier the two, both ex-businessmen who own ranches and cattle and favor cowboy boots, enjoyed a very close friendship.
Bush, who is eager to attract Hispanic voters ahead of the US presidential election in November, last week announced US immigration reforms which Fox has long sought.
Half of the eight million undocumented workers in the United States are Mexican. The money they send home, 12 billion dollars last year, is the country's number two source of foreign revenue after oil.
Bush also met Monday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who addressed US complaints about Brazil's decision to photograph and fingerprint US visitors -- a tit-for-tat response to identical US requirements imposed for security concerns on Brazilians and other nationalities that need visas to enter the United States -- 27 countries are exempted.
"If there are already 27 countries, why not make it 28," Lula asked Bush, according to Brazilian sources who attended their meeting.
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