Chilean Leader to Push for Free-Trade Talks

President Patricio Aylwin says his No. 1 goal on a visit to the United States this week will be to get negotiations started as soon as possible for a U.S.-Chilean free-trade accord.

Aylwin starts his visit today in Los Angeles. He will also make stops in San Diego and Dallas before arriving Tuesday evening in Washington.

Chilean economic officials and business people are traveling with the president to promote “contacts that could translate into increments of American trade and investment in Chile,” Aylwin said in an interview last week. “The culmination of this, we might say, is to achieve the start of negotiations for the free-trade agreement.”

The Bush Administration has offered to negotiate free-trade agreements with Latin American countries under its Enterprise for the Americas Initiative. Chile’s dynamic market economy and open trade policy make it a prime candidate for such an agreement.

But Washington has delayed formal talks with Chile while U.S. officials negotiate a free-trade agreement with Mexico. “We know, from the experience of the free-trade treaty with Mexico, that this takes a lot of time,” Aylwin said. “Consequently, we want to begin right away.”

He noted that U.S. trade unions have opposed free trade with Mexico because products made with cheaper Mexican labor might win price competition against U.S.-made products.

“Labor in Chile is cheaper than in the United States,” he said, “but because of the distance, that factor has much less influence on prices at which Chilean products reach the United States, since long freight charges have to be added.”

As a result, he said, “there may be less opposition” to an agreement with Chile.

Time is already running short for negotiating a U.S.-Chilean agreement before “fast track” authorization by the U.S. Congress expires in mid-1993. Under the authorization, Congress may not vote on separate clauses of a proposed trade agreement but only on the pact as a whole.

In Los Angeles on Monday, Aylwin plans to meet with Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson.