Now that the dust has settled from the exhilarating success in Cancun, citizens' groups are refocusing their efforts on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the upcoming meeting of trade ministers this November in Miami. People from all over the Americas will come to Miami to hold a series of workshops, rallies and cultural events denouncing the attempt to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the rest of the hemisphere through the creation of the FTAA and proposing alternatives to corporate-led globalization.

For the past year, the Hemispheric Social Alliance and other social movements have been carrying out a massive popular-education campaign on the FTAA and against proposals for regional trade deals like the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). These efforts were kicked off by a national plebiscite on the FTAA held in Brazil in September 2002, when some 10 million Brazilians voted no to the FTAA. Votes, petition drives and other kinds of public consultations are underway in many countries, including Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada and the United States. A coalition of US groups, including the Alliance for Responsible Trade, Jobs With Justice, the AFL-CIO, and Citizens Trade Campaign, are carrying out a U.S. ballot campaign designed to raise public awareness of the proposed agreement and to give people a chance to express their opposition to the FTAA. Ballots and information on the FTAA are available at www.aflcio.org/stopftaa.

Pressure from international civil-society groups meeting in Cancun helped to bolster developing-country governments' resolve to resist the WTO proposals. Similar public pressure in the Americas could lead to the FTAA's derailment, as well. The Brazilian and Argentine governments continue to push for the exclusion of the issues most heavily promoted by the United States - investment, services, and intellectual-property rights -- and for the strengthening of South American regional integration, while the Venezuelan government advocates an approach to economic integration that would include a stronger role for the State and the provision of funds to narrow the asymmetries among countries in the hemisphere. Caribbean governments have also expressed reservations about the FTAA, suggesting that either the timeline should be expanded, the agenda narrowed, or both.

Citizens groups throughout the hemisphere are working hard to expand the public debate on the FTAA. Many will come to Miami in November; others will hold parallel days of action in their own countries. For more information on the ongoing FTAA campaign see www.art-us.org and the Hemispheric Social Alliance's site at www.asc-hsa.org.

Why Oppose the FTAA?

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with the World Trade Organization (WTO), are the architects of today's global economic system, which is characterized by inequality, injustice, poverty and scarcity for many of the world's peoples and countries. The global economic system is wrought with great imbalances of power which the architects and the beneficiaries of the system seek to maintain a firm hold on. There are many mechanisms that are being employed to ensure the security of the status quo; these include regional and bi-lateral "free trade" agreements like the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and now, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). These "free trade" agreements are anything but "free"-they exploit workers, widen the gap between the rich and the poor (among and within countries), marginalize women, indigenous peoples and communities, cause environmental harm, and re-entrench power as they accelerate corporate-led globalization.

The free trade doctrine argues, at its core, that the global market alone will regulate needs, supply and demand, guided by the "invisible hand" of the market. This logic is also known as market fundamentalism- -leaving everything to the whim of the market, rather than in the hands of local communities or even countries to determine the best use and distribution of resources in a just, equitable and sustainable manner. Free trade places profit above people, often ignoring details like the basic requirements of human survival and growth, or inequalities in power and resources, calling instead for market deregulation and liberalization, privatization of services, cuts in public spending on social services, and the placement of individual needs over communal ones. As the authors of Alternatives for the Americas put it, according to this model, "free trade does not simply involve opening ourselves to global trade; it also entails renouncing our role as active subjects in determining our future, and instead allowing the market to decide the future for us. According to this view, it is unnecessary for us to envision the kind of society we want to be or could be. We only need to eliminate all obstacles to global trade, and the market itself will take on the task of offering us the best of all possible worlds." (www.web.ca/%7Ecomfront/alts4americas/eng/eng.html)

The FTAA expands on a proven disaster, NAFTA. Not only is it being written behind closed doors, without citizen input or consent, it will further devastate workers and farmers, and the environment. The FTAA will worsen poverty and inequality, erode consumer and environmental protections and domestic regulation, and lead to the privatization of essential services like water, electricity, healthcare and education. Consider what has happened since 1994, when NAFTA came into effect:

• NAFTA has already cost the U.S. 750,000 actual and potential jobs, destroying entire communities as employers moved key plants. Manufacturing jobs - the key to the middle class for generations of American workers - have been hit the hardest.


• New 'maquiladora' plants near the U.S. border hired about 500,000 Mexican workers, but overall, 1.4 million Mexican jobs have been lost. The cost of living in Mexico has tripled, but wages are 27% lower. Expect worse from the FTAA.


• Like NAFTA, the FTAA would protect corporate profits over people. NAFTA has made it harder for governments to protect workers' rights, public health, and the environment - even within their own countries. FTAA rules could also expand the privatization of public services.


• Under NAFTA rules, Canadian-based Methanex corporation is demanding almost $1 billion from the U.S. because California passed a law banning a harmful fuel additive the company produces.


• Mexico was forced to pay $16 million to U.S.-based Metalclad because they did not want to allow Metalclad to re-open a toxic waste dump on Mexican soil.


• Canadian-based Funeral Home chain the Loewen Group is suing the U.S. government for $750 million. The Loewen Group, found guilty of fraudulent business practices by a Mississippi jury in 1995, claims that the state court system constituted a violation of its investor rights.

According to Global Exchange, "the FTAA will have a huge impact on people's everyday lives - on the food that we eat, the water that we drink, our children's access to education, our healthcare and essential medicines, and our electricity. In the United States, 43 million people lack healthcare coverage, one in five children is growing up in poverty, small family farms and businesses are loosing out to multinational corporations, and two million people are incarcerated, many for nonviolent, poverty related crimes. The FTAA will likely increase economic inequality both within and between countries by concentrating wealth, promoting privatization of human and other essential services, and removing protections for small farmers and businesses.

Without strong environmental and human rights protections for workers, consumers, indigenous communities, people of color and the poor, the FTAA is bound to increase profits for multinational corporations without providing real benefits to society as a whole. That is why millions of people around the world are directly challenging the corporate agenda of free trade, privatization and deregulation while promoting environmentally sustainable, human-centered alternatives. The FTAA is neither necessary, nor inevitable. It can be stopped if enough people organize against it.|"Ã

What Can You Do to Stop the FTAA?

Demand Your Rights! Make your voice heard! Vote NO on the FTAA!!

Visit www.unionvoice.org/campaign/noFTAA to complete a ballot! Your ballot will be delivered along with millions of others to trade ministers in Miami this November during the FTAA Ministerial.

Come to Miami to Protest the FTAA! Mobilize your community to participate in the FTAA protests, November 19th to the 21st. Demonstrations, teach-ins, seminars and conferences, and discussions of alternatives to "free trade" will be taking place while trade ministers from 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere negotiate the terms of the FTAA behind closed doors. Check out www.stopftaa.org for information on the schedule and logistics for the events in Miami.

Learn More and Get Involved!

For more information on the FTAA, go to:

• www.peoplesconsultation.org
• www.stopftaa.org
• www.asc-hsa.org
• www.jwj.org
• www.globalexchange.org
• www.art-us.org