Mexico's Ill-Conceived Push for Free Trade

In Mar del Plata, Fox's insistence on including a commitment to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in the final declaration at the Fourth Summit of the Americas led to diplomatic frictions with Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Even after the attempt failed to gain consensus, Fox bitterly criticized those he claimed "short-sightedly think that the solution is to close themselves off and not enter into market competition," in allusion to the Mercosur countries and Venezuela who opposed the FTAA.

The following week at the APEC meeting in South Korea, Fox joined Canada, the United States, and Peru in a joint commitment to fight for the FTAA and restated what has become a canon of faith within his government: "We are absolutely convinced that everyone will benefit from opening our economies and trading with each other "

Undaunted, the Fox administration's free trade mission has recently extended to Geneva, where last-minute negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seek to produce texts in the run up to the Hong Kong Ministerial December 13. Mexican Ambassador to the WTO, Fernando de Mateo, chair of the Services Negotiations Committee gained the censure of developing country governments and nongovernmental organizations when he delivered a draft that was heavily criticized for not representing majority developing country views. Five Asian countries, the Africa group, Brazil, and several Caribbean nations protested the lack of consensus on key parts of the draft.

A letter to WTO Chair Pascal Lamy signed by scores of civil society organizations from throughout the world called the draft process directed by De Mateo "highly undemocratic" and "deceptive." According to the letter, Chair De Mateo included elements under debate without indicating where lack of consensus existed; the standard procedure is to bracket such points. The letter demands that the draft text delivered to Ministers in Hong Kong reflect the consensus interests and positions of WTO members and particularly developing countries. It concludes: "Failure to do so only makes a mockery of the 'multilateral,' 'rules-based,' trading system."

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