Latin America
The sixth Hemispheric Meeting to Fight Free Trade Agreements and for integration of the peoples began sessions at Havana Convention Center on Thursday.
Lately, the US government’s ability to use free trade agreements and trade preference bills as instruments of foreign and economic policy is dwindling.
The fight for land and territory and opposition to neoliberalism and free trade treaties (FTAs) with the United States are the main issues at the Indigenous People’s Summit currently meeting in Iximché, Guatemala.
The Continental Social Alliance and its Cuban Chapter convened on Tuesday the 6th Hemispheric Meeting of struggle against Free Trade Accords (FTA) and for people s integration in this capital.
Trade integration in the Americas is quickly approaching a major milestone. If agreements with Colombia, Peru and Panama are ratified in the coming year, more than half of Latin America will have free trade accords with the United States.
Parallel to the 4th EU-Latin America/Caribbean Summit in Vienna this week, large corporations from both regions will gather at a Business Summit. Apart from discussing business opportunities in different sectors, the 300 business representatives attending the event are expected to demand that governments speed up a whole range of free trade talks between the two regions.
A general overview of free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties that have been signed or are being negotiated all over the world. Organised by region, it provides a snapshot of the many processes currently under way, some of the controversies they raise and opposition movements against these agreements.
Within days of taking office, Peruvian President Alan García named economist Hernando de Soto — a man he calls ’’the most prestigious Peruvian’’ — as his chief lobbyist to push a free trade agreement through the U.S. Congress.
Shifting world dynamics mean that a proposed overhaul of the US tariff preference system threatening to exclude Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela — the three main countries currently driving trade within Latin America — needs to be examined in a global context.
A deeply divided Latin America, in the midst of several growing conflicts, meets with the European Union 25 leaders in the framework of the two regions’ fourth summit.
The Trade Treaty of the Peoples (TCP in Spanish) - proposed by President Evo Morales - is a response to the failure of the neo-liberal model, based as it is on deregulation, privatisation and the indiscriminate opening of markets.
South American nations will have to choose whether they want continental unity or individual trade agreements with the United States — but not both, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday.
"Nobody who sat across the negotiating table from the United States came out of the talks feeling they got a fair deal," said Peter Hakim, president of the nonpartisan Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "And many feel they’ve been outright cheated."
COPA the Panamanian airline is now flying the Brazilian company Embraer’s E-190 commercial airliners on routes previously dominated by Boeing 737s. This detail highlights broader shifts in the economic balance of power in Latin America away from United States corporations.
The European Union posted strong trade growth with Latin America last year, led by Venezuela and Mexico. But future EU relations with the region will depend on expanding free trade agreements.
The European Commission’s objective is to ’’establish an enhanced partnership through a network of association agreements (including free trade agreements) involving all the countries of the [Latin America and Caribbean] region and liable to contribute to the integration of the region as a whole.’’
South Korea hopes to establish free trade agreements (FTAs) with other Latin American and Caribbean countries following one with Chile, Vice Finance and Economy Minister Kwon Tae-shin said Sunday.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) this week said the U.S. should drop partners in free trade agreement negotiations if talks on those agreements are not progressing.
The new political climate is favourable to projects for regional integration other than the US-led free trade area of the Americas, the most radical being the mutually helpful Bolivarian Alternative.
Bush is branding Latin Americans’ broad rejection of his trade agenda at last month’s Summit of the Americas in Argentina as an attempt to "roll back the democratic process of the past two decades". What Latin Americans are actually rolling back is the US-driven economic process of the past two decades, which worsened poverty, income inequality, displacement, and cultural and environmental destruction.
