Americas Summit Ends; Clinton Hails ‘Watershed’

President Clinton and the leaders of 33 Western Hemisphere nations concluded a weekend summit Sunday by signing a free-trade agreement that Clinton called “a watershed in the history of the hemisphere.”

The leaders promised that the 32-page document, which agrees to create the largest free-trade zone in the world, will mean more jobs and prosperity for the region’s citizens.

“Future generations will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better,” Clinton said in the closing ceremony of the Summit of the Americas at a downtown convention center, where he shared the stage with the presidents and prime ministers of Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Under the agreement, they resolved to begin building the Free Trade Area of the Americas immediately and to conclude negotiations no later than the year 2005. Countries or other regional trade groups will gradually be phased in as their economies are ready to face competition.

“A key to prosperity is trade without barriers, without subsidies, without unfair practices and with an increasing stream of productive investments,” the leaders said in their Declaration of Principles.

After the summit ended, Clinton and the leaders of Mexico and Canada also invited Chile to join the North American Free Trade Agreement, a step intended to signal to other countries that they can be included once their economies are in good shape. With the most well-ordered economy in Latin America, Chile is expected to be able to complete the negotiations for entering NAFTA in about 15 months.

While lavishing praise on the symbolism and promise of the summit, most officials acknowledged that Sunday’s 34-nation pact is only the beginning of a long and ambitious process. Several said they hoped the fact that the United States sat down with the rest of the hemisphere--the first such meeting in 27 years--signaled the start of a new relationship.

“This is the flight manual that will keep us busy for many years to come,” Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Angel Gurria said.

For the first time in history, “Americans are really understanding . . . that they need us as much as we need them,” said Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. “It’s a sea change. . . . It’s the first time we haven’t come to resist or to receive instructions.”

Salvadoran President Armando Calderon Sol said: “Many people think to come to the United States is to ask for money, and many Americans think we come here to ask for money. We came here looking for business, investment and (trade) partners.”

For all the upbeat talk, there were words of caution about the difficulties of ultimately phasing in the free-trade zone, which will encompass 750 million people and goods and services worth more than $14 trillion. It requires a number of countries to reform sluggish economic systems, reduce high tariffs, eliminate subsidies and set up legal mechanisms to guarantee property rights.

Furthermore, there is some question about how receptive the U.S. public--which in large numbers turned against Clinton and the Democratic leadership in midterm elections--will be toward the expansion of commercial ties with Latin America.

“The public is not ready for a free-trade agreement with Latin America,” said Mark B. Rosenberg, acting dean of urban and public affairs at Florida International University and an expert on Latin America. “In the post-Cold War environment, they don’t understand what the dominant values are. The pace of change is so rapid, and Americans are very insecure.”

And smaller countries fear being left out or put at a disadvantage.

Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados cautioned that the coming “tide” of free trade could be dangerous for Caribbean island nations if special measures are not taken to prepare their economies and give their products a share of the hemisphere’s market.

“A rapidly rising tide can and does overturn small boats, especially small, unbalanced boats,” Arthur said. “The Caribbean has small, unbalanced economies.”

Clinton and other leaders emphasized that the new economic partnership is aimed at creating employment and income by increasing the exports of all participating countries. Clinton claimed that 100,000 jobs have been added in the United States because of the year-old NAFTA.

Bolivia’s Sanchez de Lozada expressed optimism that more trade will mean development and employment in his country, the poorest in South America.

“What we were talking about at this summit was jobs,” Sanchez de Lozada said. He said that while Clinton was “obviously talking about American jobs because he’s got to win an election,” the United States must also buy more imports from Latin America if the partnership is to work.

In Sunday’s closing summit ceremony, Clinton gave Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide a place of honor, inviting him to be the final speaker. Aristide, making his first trip to the United States since U.S. troops restored him to power Oct. 15 after three years in military-imposed exile, used his speech to effusively thank Clinton and the other leaders for their support.

Aristide, speaking in French, English and Spanish, invited Clinton to visit Haiti.

While much was said about trade at the summit here in balmy Miami, the participants failed to take significant action on some of the most serious festering problems in the Americas, such as illegal drug trafficking and human rights.

In the documents signed Sunday, the presidents and prime ministers agreed to “encourage” legislation that would freeze and confiscate assets produced by the laundering of drug money, estimated to be a $300-billion business.

But the measure was watered down from an earlier proposal that would have required such legislation. In addition, a tough U.S.-sponsored plan for cracking down on drug production and smuggling never made it to the final documents after Colombia, Bolivia and Peru objected.

Human rights activists complained that the summit, by concentrating so heavily on trade, ignored abuses that continue to go unpunished in Latin America, still a violent region despite the end of most wars.

“The summit participants have sent precisely the wrong signal to human rights abusers in the region--that they can continue to get away with murder,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Vivanco noted that summit participants pledged to strengthen judicial systems to fight administrative corruption--not to bring human rights abusers to trial.

Sanchez de Lozada said the summit declarations did not mention the Communist government of Cuba and the U.S. embargo against the island because of disagreement among the leaders on how to press for Cuban democracy. But Cuba was brought up again and again in the summit’s private discussions.

Some leaders, including those of Mexico and Brazil, oppose the U.S. embargo and advocate dialogue with President Fidel Castro, who was not invited to the summit. Argentine President Carlos Menem supports the U.S. embargo. Guido di Tella, the Argentine foreign minister, said that if the summit had tried to reach agreement on Cuba, “there would have been an impasse.”

The entire Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action signed by the 34 leaders was negotiated in advance by lesser officials. The presidents and prime ministers made no changes in the documents presented to them for signature.

“They went over it very thoroughly but didn’t change a word,” said Charles Gillespie, the State Department’s chief negotiator for the summit. As a result, the contents are sometimes bland or vague where some would have preferred stronger language or more specific commitments, such as in the area of drug trafficking.

“Drugs, like Cuba, is an area where we really don’t have an answer,” Sanchez de Lozada said.

* FALLING TRADE BARRIERS: Summit lays down a challenge for the global economy. D1