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By Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
April 20, 2001
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Establishing the Free Trade Area of the Americas - a vast trade area from Canada to Chile - is the ultimate objective for 34 heads of government, including President Bush. A final agreement is still years away. Many Minnesota companies welcome the prospect of easier access to customers in South America, but skeptics say the deal benefits mostly big companies and their investors at the expense of workers.
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Spokesman Roberto Telleria says Skyline could do more business in Brazil if only the government there would lower trade barriers. Telleria says taxes imposed by Brazil and other South American countries can add 100 percent to the cost of Skyline's products.
John Bygrave says NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - helped his Twin Cities-based company, DELKOR, gain business with a big dairy in Mexico. NAFTA covers the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Bygrave thinks FTAA may have the same beneficial effect on his firm's trade throughout South America. DELKOR's 35 employees make machines that make containers for dairy products.
Critics worry that FTAA, like NAFTA, makes it attractive for companies to shutter U. S. plants and relocate to Mexico where labor is cheap. Bygrave says that's not the case with DELKOR.
"The only advantage a NAFTA-type agreement would bring to DELKOR is the manufacturing of certain kinds of components that would be otherwise more expensive here, but for the moment we can do just as well manufacturing everything in Minnesota," he says.
The intensity of the debate over the effects of an FTAA pact among 34 North American and South American nations really picks up steam when trade in food commodities is put on the table.
Marshall-area farmer Don Louwagie, president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association likes the prospect of selling more soybeans to South American customers, but he's not thrilled about an agreement that would lower protections U. S. farm products.
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Business among North American and South American countries is already brisk. Robert Pastor, a former State Department official for Latin American affairs who now teaches at Emory University in Atlanta, says FTAA rules will help ensure the trade is fair. As for consequences should the huge trade zone be created, Pastor says, job losses and dislocation of workers and businesses are inevitable, as is the creation of new jobs.
"Far better to retrain the people and move them into new and more progressive and dynamic industries," he says.
Larry Weiss with the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition says workers whose livlihoods evaporate with the creation of FTAA have little to say about their fate because the negotiations are tilted toward multinational companies. Weiss and others back the alternative trade talks called the People's Summit. And they are organizing an anti-FTAA protest at the Capitol in St. Paul.
Highlighting critics complaints about excessive secrecy in international trade talks, FTAA officials are - for the first time - releasing summaries of the seven years of negotiations. Weiss says leaked documents show an agreement could threaten the regulations individual governments have in place for protecting the environment and people in the workplace.
"What they provide is a global, or in the case of FTAA a continental, deregulatory regime that is more powerful than national governments and gives corporations an end run around national regulations, therefore an end run around their own citizens," Weiss contends.
As with NAFTA, Weiss says, FTAA might allow companies to resolve disputes with countries out of the public eye, bypassing proceedings where everyone with a stake in a decision can be heard.
More on free trade:
Minnesota college students campaign for fair trade, one cup of coffee at a time. Read Laurel Druley's story.
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