Bush, trade-area foes clash as Americas summit begins

By Maria Isabel Rivero Nov 4, 2005, 20:31 GMT

Mar del Plata, Argentina - U.S. President George W. Bush promoted his free-market agenda Friday at an Americas summit, but his chief antagonist declared plans for a vast regional free trade area 'buried'.

The conflict between Bush and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez played out as anti-Bush demonstrators took to the streets in this seaside resort, where Chavez spoke to an estimated 30,000 at a stadium rally.

'At this summit of the people, we have buried ALCA,' Chavez told the rally, using the Spanish acronym for the trade area. 'The next objective is the bury capitalism.'

Washington is pushing for the summit to back its push for a free trade area from Canada to the tip of Argentina, but the long-standing project has split the region.

Bush, speaking earlier at a press conference with summit host and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, confidently touted his own goals as the 34-nation summit got under way.

For example, he said, it was important for Latin American countries to take steps like fighting corruption to encourage foreign investment.

'When a government fights corruption, that government sends a signal to investors - large and small - that this is a good place to take risk,' Bush said.

But Bush is deeply unpopular in Latin America, where many see him as spearheading U.S. dominance of the region and as a warmonger for invading Iraq.

Chavez, a friend of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro, recently called Bush 'Mr. Danger' and accuses Washington of wanting to kill him and invade his country - charges the United States calls 'ridiculous'.

At the rally, also attended by former Argentine football great Diego Maradona, Chavez said he would try to steer clear of Bush at the two-day summit and urged other leaders to do the same.

The summit's official theme is fighting poverty and strengthening democracy by creating jobs - an effort to sidestep divisions over the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

FTAA opponents include heavyweights Brazil and Argentina as well as Venezuela and several others, all of whom oppose even mentioning the free trade area in the two-day summit's final statement.

Bush and Kirchner made no apparent progress in bridging the gap during their talks Friday, which Kirchner described as 'clear, serious and sober'.

Despite Chavez's rhetoric, Bush told American reporters he would treat the Venezuelan politely if the two leaders cross paths.

'I will of course be polite - that's what the American people expect their president to do,' Bush said. 'If I run across him, I'll do just that.'

A key obstacle for the Americas free trade plan is a deadlock at world trade talks over farm subsidies, which Latin American countries are pressing the U.S. to cut. A U.S. official conceded as much.

Tom Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters aboard Bush's Air Force One plane that the president believes 'that the best way to get FTAA moving is to have a successful' WTO meeting in Hong Kong in December, 'and press the agricultural subsidies issue'.

Brazil, seen as key to any success at this week's talks, two years ago led a group of mostly developing nations that blocked progress on the WTO Doha round of talks. They demanded wealthier countries stop paying domestic and export farm subsidies that undermine the price of their agricultural exports.

While the United States has indicated readiness to concede on the subsidies front, the European Union is still wrestling with the issue that will move front and centre next month in Hong Kong.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro, excluded from the summit for human rights violations, has nonetheless blasted Washington in an interview broadcast on Maradona's popular sports show.

An estimated 44 per cent - or 220 million people - in Latin America live in poverty, according to last year's figures from the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.