Panama, along with Columbia and Peru, are seeking to preserve market access to the United States that had been given to them under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) (Columbia and Peru) and the Caribbean Basin Initiative (Panama) — both of which are set to expire.

Colombian, Panamanian and Peruvian exporters therefore see the FTAs as helping to guarantee permanent access to the U.S. market. The FTAs also help Latin America diversify their export offerings and reduce their dependency on only one or a few commodity items that fluctuate in prices from year to year, Bastian says. Case in point: Venezuela, which has a booming trade with the United States, but no FTA nor plans to negotiate one. Only one product category – oil and gas – accounted for 77 percent of all Venezuelan exports to the United States and with oil prices falling, trade may decline this and next year.

The Panama-US FTA contains provisions for higher IP standards, similar to CAFTA. More details on the USTR site. The full story is available at the Latin Business Chronicle.

‘We have to make sure that we as a business community win the debate,’ Christman [of the US Chamber of Commerce] said, adding, ‘It is by no means clear that we will win.’

From the Miami Herald [via bilaterals.org]

A Dominican Republic news site is blaming Texaco-Chevron for the US dragging its heels on bringing the country into the DR-CAFTA fold. [Link]

At least one site is mentioning that a Mercosur-US FTA is more likely than moves towards the Free Trade Area of the Americas. [Link].

The Hill.com has some thoughts on the Sugar lobby and their future in the US Congress.

American Crystal is one of several groups representing the U.S. sugar industry that stepped up their political activity in the wake of the fight over CAFTA. The cooperative spent a record sum — more than $1 million — on political contributions to House and Senate campaigns in the 2005-2006 election cycle, according to the PoliticalMoneyLine website. This is almost twice what the company spent during the 2002 cycle and $250,000 more than the total for 2004.

DR-CAFTA was seen as a defeat by the sugar lobby because it allowed for an increase (though small) of sugar imports. [Link].

Investment ratings firm Fitch Ratings has given El Salvador a ‘BB+’ Rating in part because of its participation in DR-CAFTA. [Link]. Wikipedia for Fitch Ratings here.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney predicts a tough fight for an extension of the Trade Promotion Authority, a law that allows for the fast tracking of free trade agreements by the President. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) predicts that the fight will involve labour and environmental standards.[Link].

Development bank the Central American Bank for Economic Integration has predicted GDP growth in Central America up by over 5% for 2007 in part because of DR-CAFTA related projects. [Link].

It appears that the US is not convinced that the Dominican Republic has fully complied with DR-CAFTA requirements. [bilaterals.org].

New book out by several contributors to the International Economic Law and Policy Blog — Research Handbook in International Economic Law. If anyone gets a chance to review it, please post in the comments. I would very much like to give it a look-through in relation to the project. [Edgar Elgar].

More blogosphere news

From Global Voices comes a discussion on DR-CAFTA events in Costa Rica. Of particular relevance to this project is the part discussing moves by companies to provide broadband services once the markets are fully open. One private company is rolling out WiMax to meet the need. [Global Voices].

Daniel Ikenson over at Cato comments on imports and free trade in relation to the US President’s Trade Promotion Authority, which is due to expire this summer. [Cato].

The Trade Diversion blog doesn’t think much of the import arguments used by Ikenson in relation to DR-CAFTA. [Trade Diversion].

The WTO’s Appellate Body released it’s annual report this week. [Link]

France (EUR 750,000), Lithuania (CHF 46,087), and Estonia (CHF 15,000) donated to the Doha Development Fund, which provides training and activities for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Developing Countries. None of the DR-CAFTA countries are LDCs — indeed Haiti is the only LDC in the Americas — however all members save the United States are ‘developing countries’ and thus can potentially take advantage of this fund.

Via the International Economic Law and Policy blog, the WTO has announced its interim report (which I believe is only available to the parties) in the dispute over internet gambling with Antigua and Barbuda. For more on this, you might try this article. [Link]. Looking at such diverse areas as internet gambling will be one of the areas that we will touch on with this study of FTAs and IT-based businesses.

DR-CAFTA member Nicaragua is stepping closer to joining ALBA — a ‘framework agreement’ was approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly for a trade deal / cooperation agreement between the two countries. [Link to bilaterals.org]. See also this past post.

Doha – is it live or is it dead? Daniel Ikenson discusses some of the bigger picture items surrounding the future of world trade from a US perspective over at Cato. [Link].

The International Economic Law and Policy Blog notes that more than just the threat of a WTO dispute can affect domestic farm subsidies — the cost of the Iraq war will hurt the budget for US agriculture spending.

Speaking of domestic farm subsidies, Ben Muse has a post on the EU / US trade deal involving capping these subsidies. It looks like this deal could revive the Doha Round.

Both of these posts, for me, reinforce the need to look at the circumstances of these agreements holistically, as many forces come into play when negotiating these agreements.

And in regional political news, bilaterals.org has a copy of an AP story ‘Unification remains elusive at Mercosur‘ discussing last week’s two-day Mercosur summit. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales were both there advocating a reformation of Mercosur to focus in on areas other than free trade.

The Chavez / Morales agenda is the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA in Spanish). This is an agreement put forth as an alternative to FTAs, and emphasizes social policy rather than ‘free trade’.

For more links, you might want to see this ZNet story, the ALBA wikipedia entry, and this piece from venezuelanalysis.com.

The text is available (in English) on the USTR site.

Bilaterals.org reports that the Spanish version will be out on the Ministerio de Comercio e Industrias website.

This agreement will also naturally be a part of this project. After a very quick scan of the documents, it appears to me that the IPR(pdf) and E-Commerce(pdf) provisions, at least, are either substantially the same or even exactly the same as the provisions in the Domincan Republic – Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR CAFTA).

Perhaps the Panamanian Government got the exact same deal as the DR-CAFTA nations? Comments on the agreement, as well as possible reasons why Panama did not participate in the DR-CAFTA negotiations are very welcome.

I certainly don’t feel qualified, at this early stage of the game, to say whether or not AAFTA is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing. However, being a Texan working in the UK, I’ve become more sensitive to the need to point out some culturally relevant bits for others not from the States.

First, AAFTA would (almost certainly) not involve Cuba or Venezuela. US idealogical and political disputes with these two countries, generally over communism (or as Zoellick mentions, ‘the pied pipers of populism‘), would entail their exclusion. Along this same line of thinking, I also wonder about smaller countries/economies, such as Suriname, and how they would fit in to AAFTA.

Second, as you can see from the CNN transcript, the idea of ‘surrendering the sovereignty of the United States’ is a BIG political hotbutton in the US, and one that if AAFTA is couched in those terms would cause it (IMO) to be very difficult to pass. This isn’t even to mention the numerous conspiracy theories that get thrown out by a segment of the population whenever the term ‘new world order’ gets used. Of course arguments about surrendering sovereignty are common here in Europe, usually in reference to the EU, but the key difference I see is that it seems like most people here (Europe) are generally for more regional integration (or at least aren’t against the regional integration that they already have).

Third, I wonder if AAFTA would even be possible if Presidential Fast Track Authority is not renewed. This is the authority that allows the president to present a trade bill to Congress and get a yes/no vote (no amendments are allowed) within 90 days. Without this authority, it may be difficult to get AAFTA passed domestically.

As to other thoughts about AAFTA, there is no doubt in my mind that Intellectual Property and IT-business related issues (especially ISP liability and anti-circumvention issues) would be a large part of such an organisation. These issues are central to many of the agreeements that would be component parts of the AAFTA, as well as just being issues that are key to discussions about international trade.