Some Regional Free Trade Agreements

Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

The FTAA is seen as a smaller version of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and a larger version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is further described below. On the one hand, the same fears as with the MAI, which would give even more powers to foreign investors over national governments, are seen here.

Yet, Latin American countries also fear that if they do impose some regulation, then that will likely pose an obstacle to investment in that country, as investors would simply go where there are less so-called restrictions. Given the need in many Latin American nations to provide for the large poor population, the investment takes on a slightly more sense of urgency. However, if corporations are able to invest in that country without regulations, then their accountability for any problems that may result is diminished. A nasty catch 22 or race to the bottom.

April 2001, Quebec, Canada, saw a meeting of leaders from the hemisphere to discuss the FTAA.

The United States, being the dominant economic power in the region, as well as the world is obviously a major factor in the FTAA. The U.S. is very supportive of the FTAA and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) wishes to expand the trade in services which would imply the privatization of health, education and other public services. It would be similar to what is promoted via the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the World Trade Organization. (For more about GATS, visit this web site's section on GATS).

Furthermore, as pointed out in this radio show back in April 2001 leading up to the FTAA meeting in Quebec, it has been difficult for the public to get access to the FTAA documents, even though major corporations have ready access to it. Even the world's largest journalists' group, the International Federation of Journalists, has raised concerns about the secrecy around the FTAA despite the fact that it impacts the lives of roughly 800 million people.

Unfortunately, almost predictably, as with other protests around the world, the protests in Quebec at the FTAA meeting the weekend of April 20th, 2001, were accompanied by police violence, and even some protestor violence. The violence from a minority of protestors has served to discredit the movement a little bit, which is a shame and cannot be accepted by others who are also against the FTAA and the current forms of globalization. The media concentrated on the sensationlism and the minority of violent protestors, ignoring in that respect, the majority of the non-violent protestors. As this commentary suggests, many in the mainstream either didn't really want to, or try to understand what protestors were protesting.

End of October 2002 saw another FTAA round in Quito, Ecuador. As Food First reported, "after the worst of the police violence [on October 31, 2002] against the tens of thousands of indigenous people, farmers, students and other members of civil society from the across the Americas had taken place, a police platoon, including various officers, rebelled against their own government, and joined with indigenous leaders and other protesters in demanding that the trade ministers from 34 countries meeting to negotiate the FTAA agree to receive a delegation from the protesters carrying a declaration of opposition to the FTAA." The protestors voices heard in the negotiations led to some embarrassment for key delegates, such as those from the U.S., and as the above article continued, quoting Peter Rosset, director of Food First, "'After today's Seattle-like protests,' concluded Mr. Rosset, 'the U.S. government and the transnational corporations can never again claim that opposition to free trade comes only from a small group of northern environmentalists. It is abundantly clear that people from all walks of life, across all of Latin America, do not want anything to do with the FTAA, the World Trade Organization or any other manifestation of trade liberalization.'"

For more about the FTAA, check out the following links:

• The Quebec part of the ZMagazine web site provides many articles, analysis and reports leading up to, during and since the FTAA protests, as well as numerous articles on first hand accounts from Quebec, and on neoliberal free trade in general.
• The MAI Shell Game. This is a good primer on the FTAA, with comparisons to NAFTA.
• A20.org Stop the FTAA web site provides information about the FTAA and is opposed to it. April 20, 2001 saw protests from some 20,000 people, in Quebec. Many links to other sites are provided as well as additional articles.
• FTAA official web site
• Free Trade Area of the Americas, by Karen Hansen-Kuhn, from The Development GAP, appearing in Foreign Policy In Focus Volume 6, Number 12 April 2001.
• April Archives of the radio show Democracy Now! has a number of shows on the FTAA.
• "Chasing the holy grail of free trade" from le Monde Diplomatique, April 2001, criticizes the FTAA.
• The Preamble Center has a section on the FTAA. A noteworthy article of theirs includes:
  • This briefing paper entitled: "Recent Experiences with International Capital Markets: Lessons for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)" explains well some of the problems we have seen in the Latin American and Asian financial crisis in the last few years and how still, the FTAA ignores these.
• "Sovereign Corporations" by William Greider is an example of structuring inequality into law.
• "Free Trade? Someone Always Has to Pay" by B.Kite, May 2, 2001, from Business Week looks at some of the realities.
• "Brazil Increasingly Unenthusiastic about U.S. FTAA Proposals" by Matthew Flynn, Americas Program, February 1, 2002
• "Many Oppose Trade Deal" by Marc Cooper, The Nation Magazine, February 11, 2002

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NAFTA

A predecessor to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) we have the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, set up by the United States of America, Canada and Mexico. It gives an indication of the potential impact a worldwide agreement like the MAI would have had if it had been allowed to formulate. Under the NAFTA agreement for example, corporations can sue a country if it is deemed to obstruct free trade. What could constitute an obstruction? Well, take the following for example:

• Canada's attempt to protect its citizen's health from the effects of a fuel additive was overturned and deemed as an obstruction to free trade. Canada was sued by a US chemical manufacturing corporation that produces this additive.
• Mexico wanted to prevent a hazardous waste disposal plant from being set up by a US firm. It also extended the proposed area into an environmental zone as it was found to be an ecologically sensitive area. That was enough for a US firm to claim grounds to sue under the NAFTA treaty. In fact, it turns out that Mexico is ordered to pay the US company $17 million.
• A Canadian-based company, Methanex Corporation, filed against the United States, claiming that California's decision to phase out the use of its gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) cost the company 970 million dollars. There were potentially high levels of MTBE in California's drinking supply.

The priorities of aid and development, combined with trade agreements can also affect hunger, as the following quote illustrates:

(The above example is related to the issue of world hunger as well. Where trade agreements like this mean that more food is imported (and exported) in the name of trade, without first being allowed to meet the needs of the people, then local farmers are often undersold and driven out of business and national currencies earned do not get to circulate within that society. Hunger increases as a result. For more details on this, refer to this site's section on food dumping. For more about structural adjustment, visit this site's section on structural adjustment policies.)

The above examples just hint at environmental consequences but also reveal the potential impact on innocent citizens; while a country appears to have introduced some regulation that will help protect the health of the environment and its people, this can all be blown away by some agreement on the grounds that this prevents free trade.

Human Rights Watch for example, have also published a report that criticizes NAFTA's labor agreements as being ineffective.

These are the types of concerns that people have about the effects of the World Trade Organization, as well. It may be that market economies within regions could help nations develop, but they would need to be fair and equitable, taking into account various issues, such as the environment and labor considerations. If there is any imbalance there, then there is a downward pressure on those issues in the entire region. We see above just three examples, where each nation's environmental concerns are affected. Decreasing wages in Mexico is also having a downward pressure on some US wages, as corporations make more moves out of the US and set up in Mexico. This is less free markets and more mercantilism. Both Mexicans and Americans lose out. Corporations win.

As this Economic Policy Institute paper from April 2001 mentions, Mexican wages have decreased 27% since NAFTA, while hourly income from labor is down 40%.

(See also these collections of articles from the National Security Archives project from the George Washington University. It contains links to various documents from NAFTA's secret tribunals where decisions have favoured corporate threats to profit, over the laws of the three participating countries.)

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The European Union and its Common Market

The European nations attempting to come together and form a more open status between them is an example of a free trade zone between like nations, that are equally developed. This is a possible scenario where free trade is beneficial, because of the equality between nations. It is not without its problems of course. However, it remains to be seen what direction this goes. For example, it is already noted how fortress Europe is already becoming more robust and closed off in some regards, such as in its treatment of immigrants.

If Europe can become truly unified, it will pose an even larger "threat" to American and Japanese economic dominance. Germany would be the main powerhouse supporting this (and that can give a hint at its involvement in the Baltic states in the last few years and how it is positioning itself). It also remains to be seen if they will use this opportunity to help capitalize the rest of the world, starting with the newly freed East European nations, or if they will mould them into dependent states, as with other colonized nations in the past, in order to extract resources cheaply. Germany's economic strength, proximity to East Europe and already increased involvement in Baltic affairs are hints towards these things. (Note that part of World War II was about German expansion into Eastern Europe and attempting to form such an empire. It is much less likely that such an explicit action is going to be repeated, as today's forms of globalization, if unchanged, risk leading to similar end results, with much less violent means.)

Given the Kosovo conflict, the US dominance of NATO, the inability of European forces to apparently do much without the US (possibly not a complete truth given the US insistence of control, or even bypassing NATO at some points), Europe is now considering other forms of regional security which would not include the US and NATO. This would also gear them up to be an even more powerful center of world capital than what it already is.

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Free Trade between US and Africa

Some of the attempts and conditions suggested by USA in an effort to improve trade relationships and agreements with Africa have been criticized by South Africa and various NGOs as being "too much in favor of multinational corporations and foreign investors at the expense of the vast number of poor Africans."

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US and Vietnam Trade Agreement

The US-Vietnam trade deal in the summer of 2000, is also about more economic liberalization of capital flows in and out of Vietnam (one of the things the US wanted to achieve in its war with that nation). US corporations stand to benefit.

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