Prospects for Free Trade in the Americas / Edition 1

by Jeffrey Schott

Overview

Negotiations on a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were officially launched at the Santiago Summit in April 1998. This study examines the prospects for the FTAA in light of recent economic and political turmoil in Latin America and the continuing impasse over US "fast-track" authority. The study evaluates progress to date in the trade talks and proposals for accelerating the target date of January 2005 for concluding negotiations, and it takes into account the results of the April 2001 Quebec Summit. It surveys regional interests in the wide-ranging negotiating agenda and assesses the "readiness" of countries to participate in a hemisphere-wide free trade zone (based on updated "readiness indicators" originally developed by Hufbauer and Schott in their 1994 study, Western Hemisphere Economic Integration).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881322750
Publisher:	Peterson Institute for International Economics
Publication date:	08/01/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Schott joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 1983 and is a senior fellow working on international trade policy and economic sanctions. Durgaing his tenure at the Institute, Schott was also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University (1994) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University (1986–88). He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1982–83) and an official of the US Treasury Department (1974–82) in international trade and energy policy. Durgaing the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations, he was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the GATT Subsidies Code. Since January 2003, he has been a member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the US government. He is also a member of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy.

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Acknowledgments	xi
1	The Road to Free Trade in the Americas	1
	Latin America's Economic Revival	4
	FTAA: Learning from Experience	9
	FTAA: The Hard Road Ahead	13
	Plan of the Book	14
2	Readiness Indicators for Latin America and the Caribbean	15
	About the Readiness Indicators	17
	Developments since the Miami Summit	20
Appendix 2.1	Readiness by Region	28
3	The FTAA: Objectives and National Interests	83
	FTAA Scope and Coverage	84
	The FTAA and Economic Development	90
	Regional Interests in the FTAA	92
4	Current Challenges and Prospects	101
	Current Challenges	102
	FTAA Scenarios	107
	The Quebec Summit and Beyond	110
	Completing the FTAA	113
	Tables
Table 1.1	FTAA participants: Economic overview	3
Table 1.2	Latin America merchandise trade, 1990-99	7
Table 1.3	Foreign direct investment inflows, 1990-99	8
Table 2.1	2001 Readiness Indicators	22
Table 2.2	1994 Readiness Indicators	24
Table 2.3	Comparison of 2001 and 1994 rankings of Readiness Indicator scores	26
Table 2.4	Price stability: December-December variations in the consumer price index	53
Table 2.5	Budget discipline: Nonfinancial public sector surplus/deficit	55
Table 2.6	Gross national savings	57
Table 2.7	External debt	59
Table 2.8	Currency stability: Real effective exchange rate index	61
Table 2.9	Market-oriented policies	63
Table 2.10	Reliance on trade taxes	78
Table 2.11	Policy sustainability	80
Table 3.1	Latin American and the Caribbean: Trade shares, 1999	93
Table 3.2	US merchandise exports	95
Table 3.3	US merchandise imports	95
	References	117
	Index	121

What People are Saying About This

Richard Feinberg

A sober, informed assessment of trade relations in the Western Hemisphere . . . [It] elucidates the importance of trade negotiations for the broader inter-American agenda ...—(Richard Feinberg, Professor of International Political Economy and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego)