By Tom Raum, Associated Press Writer. Yahoo! March 30, 2001
WASHINGTON, 29 (AP) - President Bush urged quick approval Thursday of a
hemisphere-wide free-trade zone, an arrangement that one official said could
include a clause to withdraw a country's benefits in the event of a military
coup.
The official, Canadian trade representative Marc Lortie, said such a "democracy
clause'' will be put forward at the Summit of the Americas being staged April
20-22 in Quebec. Lortie is helping plan the gathering.
Under such a provision, Lortie told reporters, the tariff-free treatment for
exports and imports that would be a feature of such an agreement could be
suspended if a country ceased suddenly to be a democracy, such as through a
military coup.
"If we're going to give each other (trade) preferences, we have to have
fundamental common values,'' said Lortie, in Washington as an emissary of
Canada's prime minister, Jean Chretien.
Every nation in the Americas except Cuba is a democracy, but some Latin
American nations have had rocky experience under military dictators.
The summit will be Bush's first participation in an international gathering
as president.
At a White House news conference Thursday, Bush said he would try to
persuade Brazilian (news - web sites) President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and
other Latin American leaders of the need to move quickly to establish an
Americas-wide trade zone from Alaska to Argentina.
"The sooner we can get a free-trade agreement in the hemisphere the
better,'' Bush said. He and Brazil's Cardoso meet Friday in Washington.
Brazil, member of a separate free-trade pact with several other South
American nations, has expressed reluctance about moving forward too quickly with
a hemisphere-wide agreement.
"As to whether or not it's 2003 or 2005, we'll just have to see if we
can't convince our friends in South America of the wisdom of doing it as soon as
possible,'' Bush said.
Brazil insists the treaty to establish a free-trade pact with the United
States, Canada and all Latin American nations except Cuba should not kick in
before its originally planned starting date of 2005.
"To the extent that (Brazil) is skeptical about our intention to have
free and fair trade, you know, I might have a chance to undermine that
skepticism. I'm going to look the man in the eye and say, 'We are
free-traders,''' Bush said.
Bush said he would have U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick work with
Brazilian trade negotiator Roberto Teixeira de Costa "to assure him that
trade with America will be done in a free and fair way. And I think we can make
some progress.''
The United States currently has a free trade agreement with Canada and
Mexico and is negotiating one with Chile.
Meanwhile, Canada's Lortie said security will be tight at the Quebec summit,
to guard against protests and violence such as marred a World Trade Organization
(news - web sites) meeting in Seattle in December 1999 and in Prague, Czech
Republic, last year.
He said safeguards will include a large security buffer zone but conceded: "This
will be a challenge.''
Besides the Summit of the Americas, a sanctioned countersummit is planned by
labor unions and other organizations to protest some of the policies of the
governments.
Some Caribbean leaders oppose exclusion of Cuba from any hemispheric
free-trade zone, saying isolating the communist-run island is counterproductive.
At Thursday's briefing on the summit, Lortie reported no plans to include
Cuba either at the meeting or in a free-trade zone. Canada is a trading partner
of Cuba. | 