Snoozing on a Key Trade Issue

In early December of 1994, President Clinton and the heads of state of 33 countries from Canada to the tip of South America met in Miami for the Summit of the Americas. The only leader missing was Cuba’s Fidel Castro. All 34 vowed to preserve and strengthen democracy; promote prosperity and economic integration through free trade; strive to eradicate poverty and discrimination, and guarantee sustainable development while preserving a healthy environment. Less than two years later, the United States--both the Clinton administration and the Republican-dominated Congress--seems to have lost sight of the mutual advantages of a dynamic and prosperous hemispheric relationship.

While it is true that Clinton responded with grace, guts and brains when Mexico needed help after the floor fell out from under the peso in December 1994, the U.S. connection with Latin America now lies in all-too-familiar soporific neglect.

Most Latin American countries have worked hard to advance free-market reforms and trade liberalization programs, even to the point of risking their own domestic stability. Consider the troubles of Argentina, which has deepened its economic reforms in spite of persistent double-digit unemployment. Or the enormous political cost borne by Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to keep economic liberalization on course. Or the drastic governmental belt-tightening suffered by Mexicans.

At the 1994 summit, agreement was reached to complete negotiations within a decade to eliminate all tariffs and other free-trade barriers from the Arctic to Argentina. “We believe the agreement we have made today to launch the Free Trade Area of the Americas will produce more jobs, higher incomes and greater opportunities for all of our people,” Clinton said in the closing ceremony.

By now, Chile was supposed to have been incorporated into the North American Free Trade Agreement, as a crucial first step. That it hasn’t gives the impression in Latin America that U.S. leaders are having second thoughts regarding the supremacy of free trade over protectionism.

None of the Latin American countries are asking for monetary aid, but they must have U.S. leadership to create the regional organizations that will make them competitive in the global market.

Issues of drug trafficking, immigration, terrorism, poverty, discrimination and the environment also suffer from lack of regional cooperation. Geography has linked the American continents, but human mistakes, or simple inattention, can politically tear them apart.