FTAA Debate Heats Up with Charges of "Imperialism"

 
As the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) prepares for the Third Summit of the Americas and the Second Peoples' Summit in Quebec, discussions at its events throughout the hemisphere continue to revolve around strategy and the basic philosophy of the organization. The rhetoric of rejection has reached a higher pitch as the Summit approaches. Various union centrals and NGOs that protested at the Buenos Aires Trade Ministerial during the first week in April expressed support for alternative Latin American and MERCOSUR models of integration. The public message is rife with slogans, as can be expected, but most important is the internal debate over which philosophy will control the movement. Will it be the Nix It or Fix It crowd?

For many groups, years of frustration over the lack of dialogue with the hemisphere's governments and the repression of protests such as those in Canc�n and Buenos Aires have taken their toll. The renewal of polarized rhetoric may be exacerbated by the new Bush administration's lack of a clear US foreign policy vision for Latin America and the Caribbean. Whatever its causes, the FTAA is being tainted with an image of US imperialism and identified with other unpopular US initiatives, such as Plan Colombia. This climate makes it harder to talk about engagement and compromise.

The anti-corporativism of the opposition to globalization and trade is turning to a more standard version of "Yankee" baiting to express opposition to the FTAA. The protests in Buenos Aires as well as at other meetings throughout the hemisphere show growing frustration with the US position. Although the United States has appeared as the strongest proponent of the FTAA, the mechanism of the negotiations is by consensus and as a single undertaking. This should favor the role of Latin America and the Caribbean in setting the tone of the treaty, but the general public throughout the region has yet to perceive its advantages.

The internal "fix it or nix it" debate inside the HSA was exemplified by two events that preceded the Buenos Aires meetings. Latin American support groups and networks from the United States met in Chicago on April 17-18 at the Latin American Solidarity Conference to follow up on the April 2000 conference that was held just before the IMF-World Bank protests in Washington. This smaller event appears to have concentrated the more activist crowd. It not only rejected the FTAA, but all other trade treaties as well. The HSA's "Alternatives" document was branded as "reformist" since it seeks to change the content of the treaties instead of simply rejecting them. One week after this, human and labor rights and other Central American development organizations met in Honduras. Many of the groups participating had defended the left during the civil wars of the 1980s in Central America, making them decades-old allies of the LASC groups that met in Chicago. However, these groups-while expressing concern over the current form of integration and the FTAA-publicly embraced the HSA and its "Alternatives" plan!

Similar discrepancies were evident among the groups that met in Buenos Aires. While thousands marched and many hundreds of others were turned back, Buenos Aires was the setting for some very productive civil society meetings. Although they denounced the FTAA negotiations, the hundreds of delegates from HSA affiliates declared trade and investment with and from the developed world to be a necessity for their nations. The question is clearly one of focus - on regulating or tearing down the current socioeconomic model. Unfortunately the current official climate makes the rejectionist view much more plausible than the position that seeks engagement.

In all probability, the Quebec's Peoples' Summit will opt to reject the FTAA by attacking it as a mechanism to impose an economic model that has proved detrimental to the well-being of the peoples of this hemisphere. A first step in this direction was the HSA's declaration that it will not attend a civil society meeting being arranged by the Summit, nor will it go inside the barbed wire barrier that "separates the negotiators from the people."

Recently, a joint Canadian/US/Mexican study by the Economic Policy Institute, the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives and a Colegio de M�xico researcher marked the seventh anniversary of NAFTA with severe criticism of the agreement's promise and its consequences for the workers of the three countries (see www.policyalternatives.ca/). It and other studies published this year provide strong arguments for the need to review NAFTA before considering calls to extend it. Both sides in the HSA debate can draw on such studies for support for their positions regarding free trade. Between the thousands of street protesters and the deaf ear given to those who want to discuss alternative models of trade and development, it is hard to see any resolution of this debate coming out of Quebec City.