Trade officials from 34 nations began informal talks Saturday on a scaled-back agenda for creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas that would skirt the most contentious issues that might derail the Miami summit.
Today, they officially begin working on a Declaration of Miami that will be presented to trade ministers Thursday and Friday. But on Saturday, the ministers discussed a new five-page text drawn up by the co-chairmen from the United States and Brazil.
''This text is the basis for achieving a balance that the United States and Brazil -- not only as co-chairs but also as countries -- could go along with,'' said Adhemar G. Bahadian of Brazil.
Although the new language broke an impasse between Brazil and the United States over the scope of the talks, it must be accepted by the other nations from North America, Central and South America and the Caribbean negotiating the FTAA.
What is new about the text is that it would establish a piecemeal process with a common set of rules and obligations for all the countries, and a separate set of rules that would be optional for different nations. This set of rules would be the blueprint for the final year of FTAA negotiations.
Bahadian said proposals such as giving foreign companies the right to file complaints against the Brazilian government with special arbitration panels -- a rule in the North American Free Trade Agreement -- would be unacceptable to Brazil's business community and Congress because a workable judicial system already exists.
The Brazilian official said the United States, which has taken domestic farm subsidies off the table in the FTAA negotiations, also had to recognize that some other issues, like new investment protection, and other rules were sensitive areas for other countries.
''We have done what was possible to do,'' Bahadian said. ``We have made a great effort to adjust to reality.''
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