The United States last week took a faltering step backward from its pursuit of new free trade agreements and some Canadian trade specialists wondered if it might create opportunities for Canadian exporters.
Their focus was on the growing Latin American market and the plan for 34 country leaders to gather in Santiago, Chile in April to start negotiations on a free trade deal for the Americas.
“I don’t think there will be any short-term implications for us but if by spring the U.S. still is off-side, then I would imagine Canadians will be seeing if there are more opportunities for deals bilaterally,” Don Knoerr, trade specialist for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said in a Nov. 14 interview.
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From his Smithers, B.C. home, Knoerr said dreams of a western hemisphere free trade zone likely would be scuttled without U.S. involvement.
Meanwhile, Canadian trade minister Sergio Marchi used a speech in Washington Nov. 13 to indicate that Canada will forge ahead with its own trade liberalizing efforts in Latin America, with or without the U.S.
“Canada does not intend to allow a delay in securing fast track to slow our own agenda to further trade liberalization in the Americas,” he was quoted as telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The same day in Ottawa, the federal Export Development Corporation predicted that the value of Canadian exports to Latin America will increase 5.8 percent next year, after a rise of just 1.2 percent this year.
The American trade setback came when president Bill Clinton failed to convince the House of Representatives to approve a request for “fast track” trade negotiating authority.
It would have allowed the administration to negotiate international deals, subject only to congressional approval or rejection of the total package. Without “fast track” authority, Congress can subject any trade treaty to line-by-line scrutiny and change.
It would make the ratification of new trade deals almost impossible.
Against free trade
The administration request for negotiating authority was not voted on Nov. 10 when it became clear it would be defeated by anti-free trade congressmen.
Clinton vowed to keep pressing the issue, hoping for a vote and a victory in early 1998.
In the meantime, American farm groups that supported the fast track proposal condemned the congressional protectionists.
With just four percent of the world’s consumers in the domestic market, American farmers need export markets, said American Farm Bureau president Dean Kleckner.
“The challenge to the United States is to open the market to the other 96 percent of the world’s consumers,” he said. “The lack of congressional action approving the legislation guarantees that we cannot meet that challenge.”
Canada will be represented at the Santiago meeting in April by prime minister Jean ChrŽtien and already is trying to negotiate a trade and investment deal with the Mercosur trading bloc of countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Last year, it negotiated a deal with Chile, giving Canadian exporters an access advantage that the United States does not have.
