Who Is Involved in the FTAA Negotiations, and How Did They Get Started?
High on their NAFTA victory, U.S. officials organized a Summit of the Americas in Miami in December 1994 to launch discussions on a hemisphere-wide “free trade” zone. After the “Miami Summit,” however, little more was done on FTAA until the “Santiago Summit” in Chile in April 1998. At this second summit, the 34 nations set up a Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), consisting of vice ministers of trade from every country. Since then, negotiators have been meeting every few months.Despite repeated calls for the open and democratic development of trade policy, the FTAA negotiations have been conducted without citizen input. A system has been set up to solicit comments from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but there is no mechanism to incorporate the public’s concerns into the actual negotiations. The general public has been given nothing more than a suggestion box.At the same time, however, hundreds of corporate representatives are advising the US negotiators.
High on their NAFTA victory, U.S. officials organized a Summit of the Americas in Miami in December 1994 to launch discussions on a hemisphere-wide “free trade” zone. After the “Miami Summit,” however, little more was done on FTAA until the “Santiago Summit” in Chile in April 1998. At this second summit, the 34 nations set up a Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), consisting of vice ministers of trade from every country. Since then, negotiators have been meeting every few months. Despite repeated calls for the open and democratic development of trade policy, the FTAA negotiations have been conducted without citizen input. A system has been set up to solicit comments from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but there is no mechanism to incorporate the public’s concerns into the actual negotiations. The general public has been given nothing more than a suggestion box. At the same time, however, hundreds of corporate representatives are advising the US negotiators. Under the so-called “
