Americas-MOAS

Chavez and Uribe started yelling and called each other names, using obscene language.

Mr Chavez then accused Mr Uribe of planning his assassination by a paramilitary squad and threatened to walk out of the summit in disgust. "An angry Uribe then shouted: 'Be a man! These issues are meant to be discussed in these venues. You're brave speaking at a distance, but a coward when it comes to talking face to face'," the diplomat said. Mr Chavez is reported to have replied: "Go to hell!"

former USTR and deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick wrote an essay proposing that the United States consolidate our trade diplomacy in the region: This year President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress should launch a new Association of American Free Trade Agreements (AAFTA). The AAFTA could shape the future of the Western Hemisphere, while offering a new foreign and economic policy design that combines trade, open societies, development and democracy.

U.S. global strategy must have a hemispheric foundation. Successful and sustainable international strategies must be constructed across administrations. Ronald Reagan called for free trade throughout the Americas, opened U.S. markets to our Caribbean neighbors, and completed an FTA with Canada. George H.W. Bush completed negotiations for a North American FTA, offered trade preferences to the Andean countries, negotiated peace in Central America, and freed Panama. Bill Clinton secured the passage of Nafta, launched work on a Free Trade Area of the Americas, and backed Plan Colombia. George W. Bush enacted FTAs with Chile, the five states of Central America and the Dominican Republic. He also completed FTAs with Colombia, Peru and Panama. If Congress passes these agreements, the U.S. will finally have an unbroken line of free trade partners stretching from Alaska to the tip of South America. Not counting the U.S., this free trade assembly would comprise two-thirds of both the population and GDP of the Americas. The AAFTA would draw together these 13 partners to build on the gains of free trade. It could also include the island states of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. Starting with a small secretariat, perhaps in Miami, the AAFTA should advance hemispheric economic integration; link development and democracy with trade and aid; improve working and environmental conditions; and continue to pursue the goal of free trade throughout the hemisphere. It might even foster cooperation in the WTO's global trade negotiations. The AAFTA might be connected to an academic center, which could combine research and practice through an association among universities in the Americas.... The U.S. cannot afford to lose interest in its own neighborhood.

in many ways, Zoellick is simply proposing a political trade with our FTA partners -- deeper economic integration in return for adding on stringent labor and environmental standards.

Over the past decade, Trinidad's murder rate has risen nearly 400 percent; last year, the rate in the capital city of Port of Spain rivaled those in Johannesburg and Baghdad. Proliferating gangs, mostly composed of impoverished young men, are behind many of the killings, centered in the dense suburbs of Port of Spain

What has emboldened the gangs and caused the violence? Mostly, drugs. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Trinidad and Tobago has become a major transshipment point for illegal substances heading north from South America. Traffickers send cocaine and small arms from Venezuela, just 7 miles off the coast of Trinidad, via fast boat. The drugs are then shipped out on container ships, planes, and private yachts.

he country's annual per capita GDP has risen from about $11,000 to $18,800 in the past decade due to strong exports of natural gas and steel. Still, unemployment remains high, and to create jobs, the government spends about $400 million per year on make-work projects. The bulk of this money is ultimately funneled to gang leaders, who administer "grants" and distribute "salaries." Indeed, corruption -- always a problem in the country -- is reaching new heights. According to several security analysts, a damning unofficial study carried out by the government in 2009 suggested that almost 90 percent of police officers were regularly involved in illegal activities. Those pursuits ranged from running and selling drugs, to colluding with gangs by renting out weapons to criminals, to performing extralegal killings.

This new G9 is the core of the too big and unwieldy G20. It is the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., India, Brazil, and Russia. The countries whose combined economic, political, military, demographic, regional and global strengths set them apart from all others. The EU doesn't belong because it doesn't really have a coherent foreign policy. The other members of the G20 are only invited to show up at the meetings because the world is too embarrassed to ask them to stay home.)

Shannon recognizes that he is the U.S.'s first ambassador to Brazil for a new era -- one in which Brazil is no longer principally seen by the United States as a regional power but is instead acknowledged as a major global actor, one in which the U.S.'s relationship with Brazil is no longer the natural axis around which the hemisphere turns and that new axes, such as that between Brazil and China, its number one trade and investment partner, may become even more important. Work on a big Brazil-EU trade deal might -- combined with the United States' limited bandwidth due to domestic and other foreign concerns -- have a similar effect of reducing  U.S. influence on the other big player in the Americas.

many in the United States have yet to come to view Brazil as we do, say, countries like China, India or France... where we expect to have differences, some major, and to nonetheless continuing to work on progress where we can find it.

The news that Brazil has overtaken Britain to become the world's sixth largest economic power is being touted as a sign that that the longtime "country of the future" has finally arrived.

In the past 20 years, Brazil has become well known for turning crisis situations into geopolitical opportunities, becoming a leading voice in international forums devoted to AIDS, poverty, and even the environment. And now, it is doing it again with a challenge that Brazilians understand all too well: a debt crisis.

The IMF contributions stem from Rousseff's intention to maintain a tradition that began under her predecessor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of using foreign assistance as a means to strengthen Brazil's international reputation and influence. Yet another example is Brazil's annual contributions to the World Bank, which have averaged $253 million from 2004 to 2009. Brazil was the first nation to contribute -- $ 55 million -- to the World Bank's Haitian Reconstruction Fund. From 2003-2007, Brazil also gave approximately $340 million to fund the U.N.'s operations. Lula also increased Brazil's contribution to the U.N.'s World Food Program from $ 1 million in 2009 to $ 27 million in 2011.

A recent issue of the bimonthly Estudos Avançados, a journal associated with the University of São Paulo, sheds light upon the assumptions Brazil brings to the FTAA negotiating table and highlights the lively debate among Brazil's business community, government, and civil society over the merits of the regional trade pact.

the Catholic Church and organized labor groups in Brazil have been the most vocal in their opposition to the agreement; they cite loss of sovereignty and fear that Latin American countries will become subordinate to the interests of the United States. Moreover, some industries in Brazil -- such as the chemicals, electronics, and capital-goods sectors -- also worry that the FTAA could be a losing proposition.

most of the Brazilian business community prefers to forge ahead with the agreement rather than risk losing out on increased commerce in the Americas. Oliveira warns that if Brazil backs out of the negotiations, the United States will simply negotiate bilateral treaties throughout the region, which could pare Brazilian exports and divert foreign investment to other markets. While the far-left wing of the Lula government continues to fight the treaty, Oliveira believes that Lula and the moderates in his party understand that Brazil would pay a high price for isolation.