Copyleft Chris Dixon. This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.
| What is the
FTAA?
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The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is an unabashedly neoliberal hemispheric trade agreement that would effectively integrate the nations of North and South America into a single free trade bloc. It is being negotiated under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS), which includes trade representatives from all 34 countries of the Americas (excluding Cuba). With the aim of being fully operative by 2005, the FTAA would encompass 800 million people in a potential market of $19 trillion. Mimicking the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and reputedly copying key features of the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the FTAA promises more deregulation and privatization while affording global capital ever-greater power and profit-making potential. This means further consolidation of corporate power, erosion of popular gains, exploitation of resources and labor in the global South, and dismantlement of already insufficient environmental protections--all in the name of "free trade." In other words, it's the same old story of colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism. The US launched the FTAA in 1994 at the Miami Summit under the Clinton Administration. The Santiago Summit in 1998 initiated nine issue-specific negotiating groups (Agriculture, Intellectual Property Rights, Services, etc.) that have since undertaken the bulk of the negotiations for implementation of the FTAA. These groups periodically report to trade ministers of all 34 countries who, in turn, meet once a year. This year's trade minister meeting will be in early April in Argentina. And this year's Summit of the Americas will be April 20-22 in Quebec City. Quality Information on the FTAA
I wrote this primer
as part of a report
on organizing against the FTAA in preparation for the 2001 protests against
the Organization of American States in Quebec City. At this point, it
functions more as an historic document.
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