SAO PAULO, Brazil - In a bid to ease Brazilian misgivings on the creation of a hemisphere-wide free trade area, a top U.S. trade official on Wednesday said nothing would be left off the negotiation table.
"The key issue is that we have not made any sector or economy off limits," William Lash III, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for market access and compliance, said at a news conference. "From agriculture to textiles, everything is on the table."
Lash spoke at the American Chamber of Commerce in Sao Paulo, where he discussed the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas with local business leaders. He is scheduled to fly to Brasilia, the capital, on Thursday to meet with Trade Industry and Development Minister, Luiz Furlan and other government officials.
Scheduled to go into effect in January 2005, the 34-nation FTAA will be world's largest free trade zone stretching from Alaska to the tip of South America.
Responding to Brazil's negative reception of the Bush administration's latest proposal to reduce tariffs, Lash said it was "our first, not final offer. There is nothing we are not including in the negotiations for the FTAA."
Under the U.S. proposal, 65 percent of Latin American exports of consumer and industrial goods to the United States and 56 percent of the area's farm exports would become tariff-free immediately upon creation of the FTAA.
Brazilian officials complain that subsidies and non-tariff barriers like environmental and health import regulations are the principal obstacles impeding greater access of Brazilian products to the American market.
"We are at the beginning of the negotiation process in which the initial focus is on tariffs," Lash said. "We have a long way to go during which we will also negotiate non-tariff issues like antidumping rules, government procurement and protection of intellectual property."
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.