Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela...in trade talks

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From: www.orlandosentinel.com/b...-headlines
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Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela in Trade Talks

By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press Writer

April 29, 2006, 6:34 AM EDT

HAVANA -- Bolivian President Evo Morales joined Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in Havana for Saturday's endorsement of a socialist trade initiative aimed at providing an alternative to U.S.-backed free trade efforts in Latin America.

Morales on Saturday planned to officially include his Andean nation in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas -- a pact that leftists Castro and Chavez signed a year ago.

So far, only Venezuela and Cuba are signatories to the pact known by its Spanish acronym as ALBA, which also translates to mean "dawn." It also been referred to as the "people's trade agreement."

The pact calls for shared trade and cooperation agreements among Latin American nations in lieu of Washington's unsuccessful Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, which Chavez and Castro said was a U.S. attempt to "annex" the region.

Saturday's ceremony will mark a deepening political and economic alliance among communist Cuba and left-leaning Venezuela and Bolivia as the three countries work toward their own idea for regional integration without U.S. influence.

Castro warmly greeted Morales in the afternoon, then both met Chavez in the evening.

By late Friday evening, Cuban authorities had released no details about Saturday's signing ceremony, including when and where it would be held.

The trade pact is named for the 19th century South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar, who led independence wars in the present day nations of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

The agreement will allow Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela to trade some products with zero tariffs and strengthen already close ties among the three nations, whose leaders are known for their strong opposition to U.S. policy.

"We don't want to be rich, but we do want to live well, with dignity, as brothers, so there is no misery, so there is no poverty, so people are not excluded -- that is among our fundamental objectives," Chavez said of the trade pact in Caracas on Friday, before leaving for Havana.

Chavez and Morales have warned in recent days that their countries could withdraw from the Andean Community if fellow trade-bloc members Colombia, Peru and Ecuador go through with free-trade pacts with the United States.

Chavez said in his Caracas speech Friday that Venezuela and Cuba would happily buy all the soybeans that Bolivia produces. Colombia -- previously a key soybean market for Bolivia -- recently signed a free trade pact with the United States and can now get soybeans at much lower prices, the Venezuelan president said.

Since a U.S.-backed FTAA fell apart last year, Washington has signed nine free trade agreements with Latin American countries. Ecuador is currently in negotiations.

"Listen, as long as the free trade pact (with the United States) threatens the small and medium-sized soy producers in Bolivia, ALBA will save them," Chavez said. "We'll take them by the hand and say, 'Come with us, we'll buy your soy beans, look at the difference.' "

Before leaving La Paz for Havana on Friday, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said his government hoped that new commerce with Cuba and Venezuela would make up for any lost trade with the United States and the Andean Community.

ALBA isn't just about trade. Heavily political in nature, it also calls for cooperation programs among nations, such as the Operation Miracle program Cuba and Venezuela devised to offer free eye surgery to needy people from other Latin American nations.

 

[samsonyuen]

From: au.news.yahoo.com/060429/19/yrtu.html
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Sunday April 30, 11:01 AM
Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia seal anti-US trade deal

HAVANA (AFP) - The leftist leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia signed a trade agreement to counter a US-led drive to forge a Pan-American free trade area.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro hosted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales in a show of unity for the strongest critics of the United States in Latin America.

Castro, who leads the Americas' only one-party communist state, hailed his two allies, who call him "big brother."

"These new leaders have emerged and they make me the happiest man in the world," the 79-year-old leader said.

"Now, for the first time, there are three of us," he said.

Bolivia joined Cuba and Venezuela in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an initiative promoted by Castro and Chavez in an attempt to thwart US plans for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

"ALBA is moving forward, and facing the aggression of the imperial projects of the free trade agreement, all we can do is attack," Chavez said. Castro added: "The best defense is to counter-attack and this is what we have done."

The trio also signed a "People's Trade Treaty" in which oil-rich Venezuela will boost crude and gas exports to Bolivia.

Morales said the treaty will help Bolivia emerge from an economic crisis.

"Only in Cuba and Venezuela can we get unconditional support," he said.

Chavez, who has become a thorn in Washington's side since his 1998 election, praised what he described as Cuba's economic achievements under the leadership of Castro, his key regional ally.

"I have been visiting this country for 12 years," he said, "and in all those years, I have seen nothing but progress, growth and victories."

Venezuela now props up Cuba's fragile centrally planned economy with its oil supplies. Cuba suffered an economic collapse after the demise of the Eastern Bloc that used to subsidize it, and it is still in dire economic straits. Cuban workers earn the equivalent of about 22 dollars a month.

The mini-summit of leftist leaders has been eyed with some concern in the region, as members of the Andean Community that includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru fear their grouping could be dealt another blow if Bolivia decides to follow Venezuela's lead and pull out.

Venezuela officially pulled out of the Andean Community this past week in protest over its members signing bilateral free trade agreements with the United States that Caracas insists threaten the commercial interests of Latin American countries.

Bolivian Finance Minister Luis Arce has already warned that Bolivia will follow Venezuela's lead if Ecuador, Colombia and Peru continue to develop their free trade ties with the United States.

However, plans to pull out from the Andean Community worry Bolivian farmers, who fear the move could negatively affect vital soybean exports.

But Morales sought to assuage their concerns by saying he had received assurances that Cuba and Venezuela will buy all of Bolivia's soybean crop.

Talks about forming the FTAA began at a Pan-American summit in Miami in December 1994, with the parties committing themselves to wrap up their work by 2005.

But Chavez managed to rally opposition to the accord at the last summit on the issue, held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in January of last year.

The summit, attended by US President George W. Bush, ended in a fiasco for the US leader: No agreement on the FTAA was reached, although the parties pledged to meet again this year to resume lagging negotiations.