|
 |
 |
|
Over the last few month, Chile's diplomacy has been not-so-quietly boasting of how president Ricardo Lagos's government has been advancing towards signing a bilateral treaty with the United States, while other Latin American countries were pinning their hope for such a treaty on multilateral negotiations with the U.S.
So much was the optimism voiced by Chilean officials about swift results that they put about that the deal would be closed at a meeting that was scheduled for last week, and took place, in Santiago between Chile and U.S. representatives.
No such thing. As most observers had predicted, the ugly head of reality emerged under the form of three basic and sensitive issues that the previous negotiation sessions had punted ahead and remained unresolved: the labor, environment and farm-goods aspects of the planned agreement.
In a joint statement, the negotiators said they nonetheless hoped to "proceed to a timely end of negotiations" by scheduling two new meetings for March and April. Several negotiating groups also will meet via videoconference on the sidelines of these sessions.
Chile's optimism was heightened in December when the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the bill giving President Bush Trade Promotion Authority, formerly known as "fast track" trade legislation, hoping this would help in ironing out the remaining problems. But the Senate not yet approved the measure and there is doubt whether it will really provide the administration with the negotiating room it wants.
There is no indication that U.S. organized labor, a powerful source of votes for the Democrats which the Republicans are assiduously wooing, will backtrack on its demands that labor conditions and benefits in foreign countries that wish to export to the U.S. in some measure mirror those in the U.S.-to cut down on perceived cost advantages those countries may have because of low salaries and poor working environment. And U.S. environmental groups have struck an alliance with labor to press for regulations in exporting countries that would have the effect of increasing their production costs.
A way around these obstacles may yet be found, but far more difficult will be to resolve issues such as U.S. agricultural subsidies and its anti-dumping regulations. Of those two thorny issues, it is perhaps less difficult to reach an agreement on anti-dumping regulations as applied by the U.S., which many countries charge as being used to protect American producers through one-sided findings by the Tariff Commission that countervailing duties should be applied to imports adjudged to be priced below actual cost. A statement in which the U.S. agrees to moderate the use of its anti-dumping laws to flagrant cases might do the trick-and, anyway, lately the Tariff Commission has been quite restrained in its findings.
But U.S. subsidies to its farmers, which help them to price their products competitively against other countries' products in the world markets, are another matter. Chances that the U.S will negotiate them away are nil, because it would mean all other producers in the world would reap the benefits of their elimination, or even their reduction. As is almost nil the prospect of a reduction in the high tariffs applied to Chilean farm products that enter the U.S.
Just as the U.S-Chile meeting was going on in Santiago, in a speech to the World Affairs Council at the Organization of American States, President Bush admonished Latin America against straying from the path of free markets, a sign of mounting worries that Argentina's wrenching crisis may lead it and neighboring countries to resort to protectionism and government intervention.
However, at about the same time Bush was at the OAS voicing his concern about Latin America's potential protectionism, Brazil's Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes was telling members of the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee visiting Brasilia that Brazil is considering filing a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization against U.S. subsidies to its soybean producers and warning U.S. lawmakers that international trade talks cannot proceed unless the United States cuts price-distorting subsidies to farmers.
Brazil, which claims it loses $1 billion in annual revenue because of U.S. soy subsidies, has already informally complained to U.S. representatives at the WTO. The United States is the world's top soybean producer, followed by Brazil, but the gap is closing quickly due to fast-rising Brazilian production and its lower costs. Members of the House Agriculture Committee, headed by Rep. Larry Combest, a Texas Republican, visited Brasilia to discuss trade. Combest is backing a U.S. farm bill Brazil says would increase existing price-distorting subsidies to U.S. farmers. He said that, while he realized "there are some very strong feelings" on the issue, it was his duty to protect the American farmer.
"From our perspective, if the only way for trade to expand with Brazil is to put U.S. farmers out of business, then it won't happen," Combest said. Chilean negotiators better take note.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com