The FTAA was created to be the largest free trade area in the world, with trade agreements that would affect all aspects of the lives of the citizens of the Americas. The FTAA was launched by the leaders of 34 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
The effort to unite the economies of the Americas in a single free trade area began with the Summit of the Americas, held in December 1994 in Miami, United States. The preparatory phase was from 1994-1998, the 34 Ministers established twelve working groups to identify and examine trade-related measures in their respective areas with a view to defining possible approaches to the negotiations.
The FTAA negotiations were officially launched in April 1998 at the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile. They agreed that the negotiations should aim to contribute to raising living standards, improving the working conditions of the peoples of the Americas and better protecting the environment. finally, they defined the structure under which the negotiations would be conducted.
At the Third Summit of the Americas, deadlines were set for the conclusion and implementation of the FTAA Agreement.
Ministers also prescribed the need for increased civil society participation in the FTAA process and urged all countries in the Hemisphere to strengthen and deepen their consultation processes with civil society at the national level.
What was the FTAA?
According to AbbreviationFinder, FTAA means Free Trade Area of the Americas, it was an organization created by the Americans, which aimed exclusively at the exploitation of underdeveloped countries, making them submissive to the United States, with the loss of their sovereignty. The approved FTAA would be like a blanket of total protection and without risks for the North American direct investments.
Where did the FTAA come from?
According to diseaseslearning, it was in December 1994, in Miami, under the Bill Clinton administration, which chaired the first Summit of the Americas, composed of 33 countries on the American continent, with the exception of Cuba vetoed by the USA. Cuba is socialist, so it is radically against US imperialism and any proposal that aims at interference in sovereign countries.
What was the FTAA’s proposal?
The FTAA’s proposal was to “represent the economic and commercial integration of the Americas”. This proposal was absolutely untrue because it was, in fact, the “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, that is, it would be a very bad thing but presented as good, since it is not possible to integrate absolutely unequal economies such as that of the first world power and the other 33 countries, in different stages of underdevelopment such as Brazil and Haiti.
Once again, the USA intends to impose by the “law of the strongest” the total and definitive subordination of the countries of the region, to integrate, in the context of the FTAA, is to deliver natural and monetary resources to the great American power, countries of the region preventing them from growing and to develop in the name of the interests of the great of the great American capital at the expense of the underdeveloped peoples.
What were the objectives of the FTAA?
One of the main objectives of the FTAA was to be able to control all trade in Latin America and the Caribbean and to reinforce the advantages that both import and export companies in the USA already have over companies in the subcontinent.
Total control of the region’s economy is of the utmost importance for the great power of the North, especially at a time of a deterioration in its balance of payments and a continuous increase in its trade deficit, as it would allow it to face these imbalances with investments abroad. That is why the USA adopted an FTAA document with the same definition contained in the AMI (Multilateral Investment Agreement), with regard to the concept of investment. In other words, everything is investment.
What damage would the FTAA cause?
There would be many losses, including cultural loss, which is already underway via the media through Big Brothers of life and American films with no content, extremely violent. They attack our moral and cultural values. A country without culture is a country without an identity. One country differs from another by its culture. With the FTAA implanted in our countries, our rich culture would gradually disappear.
With the FTAA in place, would Brazil run the risk of losing its sovereignty?
Yea! In the wake of increasingly deep economic submission, there would be no way to avoid deepening political and cultural dependence and the consequent accelerated loss of national sovereignty. The dollar would become, the currency of continental convention, with the application of the currency board statute, a figure of colonial times, which prohibited colonies from owning currencies. Neoliberalism becomes what it is intended for, a modern version of colonialism, in the name of new patterns of accumulation and reproduction of capital.
The political objectives of creating the FTAA:
Consolidate American influence over the largest states in the region, guaranteeing their support in their dispute with other powers, such as Russia, the European Union and China. At the same time, it aims to consolidate bonds of legal dependence on other Latin American states to prevent changes in economic policy, as well as to adopt policies that discipline the flow of capital goods. These links would force an adaptation of the legislation of the legislation and institutions of the different countries to the North American models, in order to facilitate the performance of the North American multinational mega-companies.
The military objective of creating the FTAA:
Place Latin American states under US military protectorate, through agreements that hinder or impede the development of advanced technologies, often for military and civilian use, in addition to reducing their conventional weapons. Finally, it wants to reduce the Armed Forces to the role of guardians of the internal order, transforming them into police forces.
The economic objective with the creation of the FTAA?
Establish a unique economic territory in the Americas with free movement of goods, services and capital, but without free movement of labor, especially the least qualified. Gradually, it would adopt the dollar as a hemispheric currency, the issue and circulation of which would be under exclusive American control.
Belo Horizonte Conference
At the Belo Horizonte conference, representatives from 34 countries in the three Americas met to discuss the project as a whole, and ended up facing a strong dispute between Brazil and the United States, two of the strongest economies in the United States. Americas. The United States, which wanted to stand out in the bloc and create protectionist measures only for its economy, wanted the abolition of customs tariffs as early as 1998. Brazil did not agree with this measure of tariff strikes, as it considered it harmful to itself and beneficial to the U.S.
The immediate consequence would be that the United States would flood Brazil with its products, which are exempt from import taxes, and which are better and cheaper than the national ones. Thus, as Brazil consistently decided, this would be detrimental to the national economy, thus carrying out “a beautiful act of protectionism for the national industry”. This could have devastating effects on the national industry and thus, on the level of employment. Even if Brazil agreed with the United States, they would continue to hinder the entry into their country of several competitive Brazilian articles, because in addition to customs tariffs, they adopt numerous barriers on Brazilian products. Numerous Brazilian products suffer restrictions or are not even accepted, such as Brazilian meat, which is not imported by the USA because it has foot and mouth disease, according to them. Among many others, this is a trick used to protect the American market. At the diplomatic conclave in Belo Horizonte, it won the Brazilian position, endorsed by its partners in the Mercosur – Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
“The rush offers very great risks and Brazil, like the other Mercosur countries wants to protect itself,” said Roberto Teixeira da Costa, president of the Brazilian section of the Latin American Entrepreneurs Council. The Brazilian businessmen who attended the conference worked well in convincing the Argentine government and businessmen of their position.
Brazil has shown itself responsible for assuming that it is not qualified to enter this market, reaping the deserved fruits.
Conclusion:
The United States currently controls 87% of trade in the region, while all other countries with which the FTAA is to be formed have only 12.08% of regional trade, with Brazil participating in a small part of these trade relations. It is necessary to highlight the North American position expressed by the FTAA that “recommends” that in purchases made by the public sector, one should avoid state monopolies and give preference to “companies that have more experience and greater volume of business”, which this is to say that in Latin America all purchases made by the public sector must be made in American companies. The FTAA would only be more unemployment, drugs, violence, territorial invasion, hunger and misery.