CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday a U.S. plan to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas was "dead" after the suspension of scheduled talks on the project he fiercely opposes.
The next formal trade negotiations between the 34 Western Hemisphere nations were to have been held in late April but officials said Thursday they were being suspended due to slow progress on sensitive issues like farming, services and market access. No new date was set.
"It's a fact, the FTAA is dead," Chavez said during a ceremony to mark the signing of planned economic projects in Venezuela involving Chinese and Portuguese companies.
"Rest in peace, thank God, it's for the good of our people," the left-wing Venezuelan leader said. He has long condemned the hemisphere-wide trade plan as an "imperialist" plot to extend U.S. domination across Latin America.
Chavez, an outspoken nationalist who accuses President Bush's government of trying to overthrow him, said Venezuela would attend rescheduled FTAA talks if they were called.
But he added: "There's nothing more to discuss there."
The talks broke down in Puebla, Mexico in February and had been rescheduled twice before this latest suspension.
Negotiations on the FTAA began 10 years ago, but a Jan. 1, 2005 deadline now looms for the creation of the proposed free trade zone stretching from Alaska to Patagonia.
Chavez argues the FTAA plan will put Latin America's unprepared economies at the mercy of powerful U.S. corporations, "like throwing a pig to an alligator."
Along with Cuba's Communist President Fidel Castro, who is excluded from the FTAA talks, Chavez is a fierce critic of U.S.-style free market capitalism. His foes accuse him of trying to install communism in oil-rich Venezuela.
The United States, Venezuela's biggest oil export client, rejects Chavez's charges it is trying to topple him.
(Additional reporting by Tomas Sarmiento)
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