Venezuela
Before an audience of more than 25,000 gathered at Havana’s Revolution Square, which coincided with the signing of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) agreement one year ago between Cuba and Venezuela, Bolivia officially joined the regional integration agreement through its Peoples Trade Agreement (TCP).
The Trade Treaty for the People " (TCP) that the presidents Fidel Castro (Cuba), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia) signed at Havana is more about politics than trade.
Bolivia’s new left-leaning president signed a pact with Cuba and Venezuela on Saturday rejecting US-backed free trade and promising a socialist version of regional commerce and cooperation.
The governments of Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba next Saturday are initialing in Havana a pact to jump start the People’s Trade Treaty (TCP), Bolivian President Evo Morales said, as reported on Wednesday by several Bolivian media.
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.
Light Industry and Trade Minister María Cristina Iglesias reiterated the government’s position that Colombia and Peru would have to abandon the bilateral trade deals they recently signed with the United States if Venezuela were to stay in the Andean Community of Nations.
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 US free trade agreements "are destroying the CAN," Bolivian President Evo Morales said.
"We will never initial a Free Trade Agreement (with the United States,) as they put men in the background and focus on the North," Venezuelan Light Industries and Commerce minister María Cristina Iglesias said Tuesday.
Venezuelan Minister for Integration and Foreign Trade Gustavo Márquez said on Monday that the countries which signed Free Trade Agreements with the US are responsible for the failure of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN).
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would consider returning to the Andean Community of Nations trade bloc provided Colombia and Peru reconsider their trade agreements with the US.
Colombian authorities on the border with Venezuela have proposed Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez to negotiate a bilateral Free Trade Agreement in exchange for the Andean Community of Nations (CAN).
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is widely seen to be at the center of Latin America’s transformation by building a regional trade bloc through the creation of ALBA and Venezuela’s membership in Mercosur to oppose US dominance and its constant push for free trade agreements with Latin American governments. However, the true democratic debate has been silenced in this simplified two-sided fight between the projects of macho men.
Text of the letter in which Venezuela renounces the Cartagena Accord and withdraws from the Andean Community of Nations, translated by toni solo.
Colombian authorities reject Chávez’ claims. "The Andean legal framework prevails over the FTA, as expressly provided for in the final text of the FTA," said Colombia Commerce minister Jorge Humberto Botero
The Andean Community "is dead" said Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia Wednesday, referring to the trade bloc that their countries form part of along with Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Venezuela, which has criticized Andean nations as being overly aligned with the United States, plans to withdraw from the Andean Community of Nations, President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday.
Venezuela has accused the United States of attempting to undermine the unity of the five-nation Andean Community in the way of free trade deals.
Rather than any remarks made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the problem of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) is the execution of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with the United States, Foreign Vice-Minister Pavel Rondón told state TV channel Venezolana de Televisión during an interview.
Chavez argues that US-proposed free-trade pacts would help big US companies at the expense of Latin America’s poor.
