ISDS Case Map
Latin America
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.
When the Bush cabinet announced intentions to revive the moribund Free Trade Area of the Americas at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, the countries of the Southern Common Market closed ranks to prevent it. What followed was a diplomatic melee that reflects not so much divisions within Latin America, as a growing resistance to the current free trade model throughout the developing world.
Most of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean want a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), even in a less ambitious form, as opposed to a handful of nations - albeit an economically powerful minority - that reject the idea.
Indigenous movements are indeed a threat to the free-trade policies Bush is hawking, with ever fewer buyers, across Latin America. Their power comes not from terror but a terror-resistant strain of hope, so sturdy it can take root in the midst of Colombia's seemingly hopeless civil war.
"We think his policies are totally contrary to what we want for Latin America and are promoting genocide, domination of workers and their communities and the plundering of natural resources," said Argentine labor leader Juan Gonzalez, who is heading a protest "People's Summit" coinciding with Bush's visit Thursday through Saturday.
Del uno al cinco de noviembre la ciudad turística de Mar del Plata vivirá acontecimientos y movilizaciones sin precedentes en su historia. Allí, a cuatrocientos kilómetros de Buenos Aires, se darán cita durante esos días la Cumbre de las Américas, la Cumbre de los Pueblos y la Marcha contra Bush. Las cifras son escalofriantes: decenas de miles de funcionarios argentinos para garantizar la seguridad, dos mil norteamericanos al servicio de la integridad del presidente de Estados Unidos y decenas de miles de manifestantes que se concentrarán para expresar su apoyo al presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez y su repudio al norteamericano George W. Bush
China pursues stronger economic ties with Latin American and the Caribbean. But will the new relationship spur development or be a step backward?
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opens an Arab-Latin American summit today aimed at increasing commerce between the two regions as he seeks to reduce developing nations' dependence on the U.S. and European Union.
Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has said Pakistan wanted free trade with the United States, China and Latin states and would soon sign accords with them in this regard.
