Argentina and Brazil unite to fight U.S. trade policy [View All]

[Say_What]

more good news for the Bushies

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SAO PAULO A statement of intent signed in Buenos Aires last week by the presidents of Argentina and Brazil might have been short on economic details, but it did send a clear message: The two countries will resist efforts by the United States to undermine their unity in regional and global trade talks.

The joint message will probably not go unnoticed in Washington, particularly with negotiators at the World Trade Organization in Geneva scrambling to salvage what they can from the wreckage of the recent WTO meeting in Cancún, Mexico, and with the United States hoping that a meeting next month in Miami will edge the Western Hemisphere closer to agreement on the Free Trade Area of the Americas zone stretching from Alaska to Antarctica that is supposed to be established by January 2005.

Using increasingly stern language, diplomats from the United States have blamed Brazil for the collapse at Cancún, saying it was too obdurate in championing the demands of developing countries for an end to farm subsidies in developed countries.

After the Cancún talks, the U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick, called Brazil the leader of the "won't do" countries and warned that Washington could opt to strike bilateral deals with "can do" nations. Since then, the group of 22 developing countries, which included Brazil, China, India and South Africa, has shrunk to 12. The defectors, which included Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, apparently gave in to American pressure.

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