Only if the United States makes major concessions on the politically charged issue of farm subsidies will the Western Hemisphere be able to craft a Free Trade Area of the Americas, several leading regional trade analysts agreed today.
The consensus by Brazilian Ambassador Rubens Barbosa, Inter-American Dialogue President Peter Hakim and Argentine International Trade Secretary Martin Redrado came early in The Herald's 2003 Americas Conference, which opened this morning at The Biltmore in Coral Gables.
The Herald conference will continue Wednesday, focusing on the question of the FTAA, a proposed trade pact among 34 countries in the hemisphere, and the numerous economic and political challenges facing the region.
Barbosa, Hakim and Redrado were featured in a Tuesday morning seminar on trade.
Earlier, moderator James Bacchus, former Florida congressman and the chairman of the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, posed tough questions regarding the future of an FTAA to the panelists.
''Should there be an FTAA?'' Bacchus said. ``Will be an FTAA? When will there be an FTAA? What should be the scope of an FTAA? Could an approval of an FTAA be secured in Congress?''
After several years of negotiations, the trade ministers of 34 nations in the Americas will meet in Miami next month to try to agree on guidelines for the final stage of negotiations. The meeting will take place as differences between Brazil and the United States are coming out in the open.
''Yes, there will be an FTAA -- provided that all the participants show a degree of realism and pragmatism in the negotiations,'' Barbosa said. 'We are beginning to discuss an `FTAA Possible.' ''
Hakim said the FTAA was running into trouble because it was not a ''front-burner'' issue in Washington or Brazil, lacking the urgency required to gain congressional approval of tough trade legislation.
''I don't get the sense of enthusiasm in Washington for an FTAA, the sense that this has to get done,'' Hakim said. ``In Brazil, the business community is divided.''
He said Washington must make concessions on its agricultural subsidies to break the logjam. ``Without movement on agriculture, the FTAA will be a very weak agreement.''
Argentina's Redrado seconded Hakim on the issue of farm subsidies and placed the weight on the United States. Redrado said the FTAA was just one of seven negotiations that Argentina is undertaking part of the country's export renaissance after its 2002 economic implosion.
''We need to have a realistic approach, we need to have a response to the failure of Cancún,'' Redrado said, referring to the collapse of a global trade conference in Mexico at the beginning of September.
''What is the U.S. prepared to do with export subsidies, with export credits?'' he said.
Washington will not discuss farm subsidies except in the WTO, but U.S. officials have said they could explore export credits. However, no trade bill has ever been approved in the United States without the support of farm states.
Barbosa said Brazil preferred a regional trade agreement, but had accepted that the U.S. changed its strategy and is now also negotiating bilateral trade agreements with single countries or the Central American nations. He said Brazil would not accept labor and environmental conditions if they included any sanctions on countries.
He also urged participants to accept Brazil's proposal of a compensation fund to aid the small, struggling economies that cannot compete with larger ones.
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