Latin America
The global financial crisis which persists since 2008 and chiefly impacts the United States and Europe presents an opportunity for Latin America to strengthen its internal markets and develop an integrated economy, says Faustino Cobarrubia, an expert at the Centre for Research on the Global Economy (CIEM), Cuba.
The United States is exploring the idea of setting up a wider regional trade pact with Latin America, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Dec. 15.
Latin American states are the only ones in the world that have decided to withdraw from the ICSID Convention. It is also the only region in the world considering the necessity to find an alternative to ICSID mechanism.
Ché Guevara once summarized “free trade” between the imperialist and underdeveloped countries as a “free fox among free chickens.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is poised to unveil a reinvigoration of his government’s muddled Americas strategy when he meets with hemispheric leaders next month.
Hopes are high that Stephen Harper can help build Canada’s trade with Brazil, the world’s seventh-biggest economy, as he launches a Latin American tour this weekend.
Member nations of Mercosur will seek to boost economic and political ties with Cuba in a bid to make the communist island an associate member of the South American trade bloc.
Various organizations and social networks in Latin America launched a Continental Campaign against bilateral investment treaties and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.
“I think these agreements are dangerous for South American producers and for European producers. For example, the agro-food industry today wants to export huge amounts of milk, to try to offload surplus; that’s only for its benefit. It risks harming major milk producers Uruguay, Argentina and others.”
The only beneficiaries of Europe’s free trade agreements are the same transnational corporations and international financial investors which have caused the current economic, social, environmental and political crisis.
The European Union will seek to conclude trade agreements with several Latin American countries and revive stalled negotiations with others when 60 European and Latin America countries meet this week in Madrid.
Le sixième sommet UE-Amérique latine pourrait être boycotté par les présidents de l’hémisphère Sud. En marge de cette grand-messe, le sommet alternatif dénonce les accords de libre-échange et ses conséquences sociales.
Latin America business leaders and experts are urging President Barack Obama to ask Congress to ratify pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama after his State of the Union speech Wednesday pledged to strengthen ties with those countries.
Spain will seek close association agreements between the EU and Central America, boost trade agreements between the EU and Colombia and Peru and resume talks between the EU and the Common Market of the South, during Madrid’s rotating EU presidency in the first half of 2010
Korea wraps up today a high-level meeting with representatives of Latin American countries where discussion centered on how the two sides may pursue mutual interests.
Alternatives for the Americas is a document of guidelines for making the process of hemispheric economic integration more inclusive, democratic, environmentally and culturally sustainable, and equitable.
As with Western BITs, bilateral investment treaties between China and numerous Latin American countries potentially protect Chinese investors by authorizing them to bring legal claims related to their investments against the host country government directly and to settle those disputes in international arbitration, rather than in the domestic courts
Two key figures in Chinese politics embarked on a tour of Latin American countries on February 9, in a sign that the Asian superpower is intent on consolidating its already substantial stake in the region.
Making hemispheric Economic Integration work for all. This is one of the aspirations spelled out in the report of the Partnership for the Americas Commission, a grouping of leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean, which is linked to the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has left Latin America with one free trade agreement in hand, another in the works and a deeper Chinese footprint in a region long seen as the US backyard.
