Quito, Ecuador – Thousands of people marched in Ecuador’s capital on Thursday to protest talks for an Americas-wide free trade zone as diplomats under heavy guard led negotiations to lay groundwork for a meeting of ministers.
Trade chiefs from 34 nations across the Americas will meet in Quito on Friday to advance negotiations toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would tear down trade barriers from Alaska to Argentina starting in 2005.
U.S. optimism over the talks has been largely overshadowed by criticism from Latin America’s largest economy, Brazil, which has warned it will not join the free trade area unless Washington makes concessions on agricultural subsidies.
Dressed in fedora hats and colorful shawls, Ecuadorean Indians marched with union leaders, students and other protesters on the Andean capital, shouting that the free trade zone would turn Latin America into a U.S. colony.
More than 5,000 armed police fanned out across the capital. Officers in gray fatigues and riot gear stood guard outside the luxury hotel early Thursday where diplomats hammered out details for discussion in Friday’s meeting.
Protesters fear opening up trade barriers will flood their developing nations with cheaper goods and that exports will suffer when competing with the world’s largest economy, the United States.
“Small businesses are going to fold and if people have no means of work, they have no money … we live by our stomachs,” said Pablo Mamani, a Bolivian Indian waving a multicolored flag who traveled five days by land to march in Quito.
The pact would create the world’s largest free trade block by expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico to rest of the Americas.
Despite some Latin American countries’ misgivings, many governments see the free trade zone as a crucial opportunity to boost exports and spur economic growth in a region battered by sliding currencies and soaring debt.
TECHNICAL MEETING
The Quito summit is ostensibly aimed a nailing down technical agreements, like a long-awaited schedule for market-access proposals – essentially saying how much countries are willing to cut tariffs, and by when.
Still, Brazil and other Latin American nations hope to use the one-day gathering to express worries over the pact and raise trade gripes with the United States. Diplomats say most of the acrimony will be kept behind closed doors.
But Brazil, which accounts for almost half of South America’s economic output, has been vocal in its opposition to U.S. plans to negotiate bilateral treaties with some Latin American nations if regional free trade talks stutter. Brazil says that strategy would “splinter” negotiations.
Latin America’s diplomatic heavyweight has also demanded the United States cut agricultural subsidies on competing products, like sugar and orange juice, which Brazil prices more competitively. Without such U.S. concessions, Brazil’s government has warned it may never join the free trade area.
Aides to President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have been more outspoken, calling the free trade zone the equivalent of an annexation of Brazil.
