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October 15, 2003
During
the fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organization, the efforts of
the United
States
and the European Union to maintain the current inequitable global
trading system provoked the formation of the G 21, a block of
countries led by Brazil,India,South
Africa,
and China.
Along with many other governments, notably those belonging to the
Asia,Caribbean,
and Pacific (ACP) grouping, the G 21
prevented the EU and the
US
from extracting greater agricultural tariff reductions from developing
countries while maintaining policies of agricultural export dumping
that have driven millions of small agricultural producers from the
countryside.
While
our enthusiasm is tempered by our
disagreement with its endorsement of the panacea of greater market
access to northern markets as a solution to the inequities of global
agricultural trade, we nevertheless see the G 21 as a positive
development. This is not, unfortunately, the view of the
US
and the EU, which have initiated a campaign
to neutralize, isolate, and destroy the new formation.
Coercion
in Cancun
The US,
in particular, lost no time in attacking the G 21. At a briefing on
Sept. 10, a US
official disdainfully branded the formation as the “Group of the
Paralyzed.” A concerted campaign was launched
to split the group, with “weak links” like
Colombia,Mexico,Chile,Costa
Rica,Thailand,
and El
Salvador
subjected to a full court press. Appalled by their government’s
tactics, US NGO’s, at a press conference on Sept. 13, revealed that
the tactics of their government included “backroom coercion, calls
from the White House, and threats to terminate other trade benefits
and stop on-going negotiations.” So intense was the pressure that the
Brazilian delegation was compelled to issue a statement asking the
delegations “to negotiate and not direct our energies at attacking
countries or groups of countries.”
Despite the intense pressures, the US
was able to detach only one country from the group:
El
Salvador.
Failing to split the G 21, US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick
then tried to isolate the alliance in world opinion by pinning the
blame for the collapse of the Cancun ministerial on it: "The rhetoric
of the 'won't do' overwhelmed the concerted efforts of the 'can do.'
'Won't do' led to the impasse.” The Bush administration’s blame game
failed, with even The New York Times putting the responsibility of the
collapse on the EU and
US’s
intransigence.
Targeting
Colombia
But, instead of understanding why it
was isolated in Cancun,
the US
intensified its efforts to destroy the G 21. In a recent visit to
Colombia,
US Senator Norm Coleman warned President Alvaro Uribe
that “remaining in that Group will not lead to good relations between
Colombia
and the United
States.’
Coleman also told the press that he had gotten the commitment of the
Colombian president to eventually leave the
Group.
Washington’s
tactics paid off. Colombia,
along with neighboring Peru,
also a country subjected to intense pressure, recently left the G 21.
Isolating
Guatemala
and Costa
Rica
Similarly, the negotiations around the proposed Central American Free
Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have
been used by the United
States
to try to break the Group of 21. In a post-Cancun visit to the region, Zoellick bluntly warned that the negotiations were endangered by
Costa
Rica
and Guatemala’s
membership in the G-21. “I told them that the emergence of the G-21
might pose a big problem to this agreement since our Congress resents
the fact that members of CAFTA are also in
the G-20,” he stated. “If we want to construct a common future with
them, resistance and protest do not constitute an effective strategy.
In my talks with some of these countries, I sense that they are
drawing the right conclusions.” Moreover, Zoellick
urged the Central American governments to begin to look after their own
interests since Brazil
“is a big country that can defend its interests by itself.”
Raising the pressure a notch higher, US Senator Charles Grassley,
chairman of the US Senate Finance Committee, added his warning that
the US would “take note” of those countries that “torpedoed” the
negotiations in Cancun and would look closely at the attitude adopted
by Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Costa
Rica,
in particular, has become the object of tremendous
US
pressure in the last few weeks. The push to get it off the G 21 has been accompanied by a strong demand by Zoellick that it privatize its energy and
telecommunications sectors, which are currently under state control.
Observers think that also part of Washington’s
strategy to detach Costa
Rica
from the G 21 is the move of the energy conglomerate Harken Corporation to sue the country to the
tune of $57 billion at the International
Center
for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
for breach of contract. US
President George W. Bush, it must be noted,
was a member of the board of Harken from
1986 to 1993.
The fear in the region was that to punish
Costa
Rica
and Guatemala,
the US
would push for a CAFTA that only includes
Nicaragua,El
Salvador,
and Honduras—a
development that would reduce even further
what little leverage the Central American countries would be able to
exercise in the projected trade area.
Intimidation also succeeded: Costa
Rica
and Guatemala
recently announced they were leaving the Group of 21.
Corporate
America
Tightens the Screws on FTAA
The US
corporate community has also begun its post-Cancun effort to undermine
Brazil,Argentina,Venezuela
and other Latin American members of G 21 in the run-up to the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
negotiations that will take place in Miami
in November. On Sept. 23, in a letter addressed to
US Commerce Secretary Don Evans and USTR Zoellick, a broad coalition of US business
groups declared: “…[W]e strongly urge you and your negotiating team to
stay the course and continue to fight for a comprehensive and
commercially meaningful FTAA that
incorporates high standards, similar to those the United States has
achieved in its free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Chile, and
Singapore. We strongly oppose, therefore, attempts by some
US
trading partners in the region to forge a more limited trade agreement
by leaving several difficult, but highly important issues off the
negotiating table entirely or addressing them in a less than
commercially meaningful way.” This was clearly a reference to the
efforts of Brazil
and other countries to protect their investment regimes from being gutted by the draconian investment
proposals of Washington,
which would lead to denationalization of industry and make impossible
any kind of industrial policy.
Among the signatories were the “heavies” of the
US
business lobby: the Emergency Committee for American Trade, US Council
for International Business, US Chamber of Commerce, National Foreign
Trade council, National Association of Manufacturers, US Coalition of
Service Industries, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
of America.
Bulldozing the Opposition is an Obsolete Strategy
These tactics of intimidation and coercion have no place in
international economic relations. Trade negotiations conducted with
ultimatums for unilateral commercial surrender will do nothing to
narrow the divide between rich and poor countries that has become the
central issue in global trade and investment. Such tactics cannot make
trade work for sustainable societies; they can only suppress
sustainable development.
We,
the undersigned, members of Our World is not for Sale, an
international network of social movements and NGOs seeking to replace neoliberal trade policies with policies that
promote global equity and sustainable societies, demand that the US
government and US business halt this strategy of bullying and
intimidating countries. This strategy is unilateralism at its worst.
We demand that Washington and also Brussels
take instead a constructive attitude towards the demand raised by G 2,
other developing country formations, and global civil society that
they end their export dumping policies. We demand that they respect
such formations as _expressions of the legitimate interests of
developing country governments rather than view them as illegitimate
alliances to be destroyed.
From
our side, we are open for a dialogue with the governments of the G 21
and other developing country blocks aimed at making them understand
the importance of defending peasant-based agriculture, protecting
local markets, and promoting sustainable agricultural production.
TheUS
and the EU should take to heart the real
lesson of Cancun:
that bulldozing the opposition as a strategy in global negotiations is
obsolete, counterproductive, reprehensible. www.focusweb.org
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