Brazil urges South America to unite

CARMEN DEL VIBORAL, Colombia -- Brazil's president told a summit of South American leaders they must merge the continent's two largest trading blocs to force the United States into granting concessions in upcoming free trade negotiations.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said greater regional integration would strengthen South America's bargaining position in negotiations for a proposed hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005.

"For South American nations to obtain real benefits in long-term trade negotiations, it is important to ... successfully coordinate our positions," he told presidents of the Andean Community of Nations in a speech made available to reporters Saturday.

The organization groups Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

The leaders met amid tight security in a colonial-era hacienda in the mountains of northwest Colombia for two days of talks aimed at clearing the road toward more liberalized trade and lifting the region out of a malaise fueled by an enduring economic slump.

Unified bloc

Brazil is South America's biggest economy and a driving force in Mercosur, a neighboring trade union that includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The Brazilian president's campaign for a unified South American bloc worries officials in the United States who believe it could undermine efforts toward the FTAA, which would create the world's largest free trade bloc.

Silva sought to ease those concerns, saying "South American integration does not in any way exclude other avenues we are pursuing," including individual trade deals with Washington.

But he also denounced the Bush administration for refusing to lower U.S. trade barriers in such politically sensitive areas as citrus and other farm products, steel, textiles and manufactured goods.

He said serious trade negotiations should only take place "once the United States has effectively shown its willingness .... to open its market and remove every kind of barrier." His criticisms are echoed by many of the other 34 future FTAA nations.

The obstacles to South American unification are formidable. Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, for instance, objects to any accord that favors U.S.-style capitalist policies.

Chavez wants the Andean Community to take on a greater political role to counteract what he describes as U.S. hegemony in the region.

Colombian rightist President Alvaro Uribe doubts whether South America will be ready for the continentwide free trade accord by 2005, and instead is actively pursuing a bilateral deal with the United States.

The official FTAA launch date of January 2005 is considered by many to be an overly ambitious target because of the slow pace of progress.