Word: ftaa
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...NAFTA. It is also a potent symbol of Brazil's ambition to be a leader of South American unity. Last year the Cardoso government broke new ground at a South American summit, where it argued for the accelerated integration of the continent. "Mercosur is our destiny, while the FTAA is an option," Cardoso likes to say. Part of that balance-of-power destiny includes closer ties with Europe, the target of more than 25 percent of Brazil's exports and the source of much foreign investment...
...Brazil already dominates its own Mercosur trading bloc, but it is smaller, weaker and much less sweeping in its free-trade arrangements than NAFTA. Accommodating to proposed FTAA rules that are similar to NAFTA's - the draft text mirrors the NAFTA agreement - is therefore seen as threatening. "Rightly or wrongly, the perception that much is expected from our side while little is offered in exchange is indeed widespread," Brazilian foreign minister Celso Lafer declared in Washington last month...
...director of the Latin American Business Council, which is based in São Paulo, agrees that the bloc is at a crossroads. "If it stays as it is now, an incomplete customs union, it will, I would not say perish, but it will be attacked by the ongoing FTAA negotiations...
...Maybe. But when? Much of the tension and unease of the north-south divisions in the hemisphere have been funneled into convoluted maneuvers over the timing of the FTAA launch. (The deadline date is itself the result of a compromise: Brazil originally wanted it set for 2010.) The latest efforts by the NAFTA forces involved suggestions to push forward the 2005 deadline for the FTAA's launching to 2003. The Brazilians have cold-shouldered the idea. Foreign Minister Lafer says a two-year speed-up would swamp domestic industries with a flood of low-priced goods before his country...
...Andean Community of Nations. "Our economies are absolutely not structured to compete in the big leagues." The region's smaller economies in Central America and the Caribbean also fear change, since a huge part of their budget revenue currently comes from tariffs. Even for such a staunch FTAA supporter as Mexico, there is still so much to be gained from further deepening NAFTA ties that opinion is divided. "It's hard to find a real driving force," says Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda. The final word on a timetable emerged from a meeting of the hemisphere's trade...