DA SILVA
FOLLOWING DISCUSSIONS with senior United States trade representative officials in recent days on the future of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) process, top Caribbean trade officials say they hope negotiations will resume with the reconvening of the 17th Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC)
meeting in July, possibly followed by a ministerial meeting in October.
At their meeting yesterday, FTAA TNC co-chairs hope to have resolved the
outstanding issue of the inclusion of negotiations for the reduction of agricultural subsidies.
A March 2005 report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the FTAA attributes the lack of progress in the FTAA talks in part to the U.S.-Brazilian co-chairmanship, which it says has
complicated the process of moving the negotiations forward.
Also pertinent is the recent pronouncement by Brazil's President Lula da Silva confirming that the Americas-wide trade pact is "off the agenda" for Brazil. The intent of that statement was subsequently clarified by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim at an April 26 joint press conference, involving U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
