How Will the FTAA Undermine Real Development that Benefits Everyone?
Our hemisphere is characterized by enormous inequalities among countries. The United States has a GDP equal to 75 percent of the total goods and services produced in the hemisphere. Its capacity to mobilize technological and capital resources is far greater than that of most of the Americas. But the FTAA would establish a system under which poor countries and wealthy countries alike are held to the same standards. This is short-sighted: You can’t ask countries to compete on a level playing field when the terrain is already so badly skewed. Asking Boliviaa land-locked, impoverished country with an economy just 2 percent the size of the US’sto meet the same requirements as the US doesn’t make sense.Foreign debt handicaps the hopes of many of the FTAA countries by greatly reducing governments’ capacity to invest in key areas of development such as housing, health, education, and the environment.
Our hemisphere is characterized by enormous inequalities among countries. The United States has a GDP equal to 75 percent of the total goods and services produced in the hemisphere. Its capacity to mobilize technological and capital resources is far greater than that of most of the Americas. But the FTAA would establish a system under which poor countries and wealthy countries alike are held to the same standards. This is short-sighted: You can’t ask countries to compete on a level playing field when the terrain is already so badly skewed. Asking Boliviaa land-locked, impoverished country with an economy just 2 percent the size of the US’sto meet the same requirements as the US doesn’t make sense. Foreign debt handicaps the hopes of many of the FTAA countries by greatly reducing governments’ capacity to invest in key areas of development such as housing, health, education, and the environment. The debt burden forces governments to divert scarce financial resources to pay off the combin
