COSTA RICA, Mar 19: The United States will not allow labour and the environment to be dropped by the wayside in free trade talks with the rest of the Americas, Washington's top trade negotiator said on Wednesday.US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said before talks in Costa Rica with other commerce ministers from Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) countries that the greatest threat to a deal was not disagreements between governments but public distrust."I think these issues (labour and environment) are important because ultimately the greatest threat to hemispheric integration is not the difficulty of negotiations. It is a loss of confidence by our respective publics in the process," Barshefsky said.
"But for the United States, I don't think these issues would be on the agenda at all...which is really rather startling and of concern because the greatest threat to freer trade is the loss of public confidence in freer trade," she added in a briefing.
Barshefsky and her peers from 34 countriesin the Americas were in San Jose to prepare the ground for a presidential FTAA summit in Santiago, Chile, next month.
Dreamed up at the 1994 Miami summit by every nation in the hemisphere except communist Cuba, formal talks on setting up the FTAA are due to be launched in Santiago.
But the process has been fraught with trouble, with Brazil backed by Mercosur partners Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay opposing the US demands to speed up the eradication of trade barriers.
In San Jose, the trade ministers who were expected to start meeting later on Wednesday, ahead of schedule, and continue through to next day evening, faced daunting odds in reaching a consensus on various issues.
The inclusion of labor and the environment in trade talks was one, though Barshefsky skipped around questions on exactly how Washington wanted them to be dealt with.
According to Costa Rican deputy commerce minister Carlos Murillo, the debate basically came down to "all against one". "I find it unlikely that the United Stateswill be able to maintain its position," Murillo told reporters.
Questioned about the poor reception, Barshefsky said that "I am never daunted by ideas that aren't received well the first half dozen times. At some point these issues (of trade, environment and labuor) will come together because politically they will have to."
Deputy trade ministers met on Tuesday and Wednesday in San Jose, but failed to resolve all the differences before their superiors arrived for today's meeting.
Murillo said the crucial divide was over a venue for formal FTAA trade talks, with most countries backing Miami but Brazil insisting on Rio de Janeiro. The compromise candidate appeared to be Panama. "The key is the site. If we resolve that, then the rest will fall into place," Murillo said.
Other outstanding issues were exactly how many working groups there should be and whether agricultural trade will be dealt with separately. The ministers must also decide who should preside over the talks, an issue related to the decisionover the site.
"Those issues will be resolved here and if not here then certainly in advance of the Santiago meeting," Barshefsky said, conceding that the San Jose meeting might not be a total success.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
