Friday, 21 Nov 2003

MIAMI, Fla.

Outside: Last night, as most demonstrators left, the streets became calm again (for now at least). The police remained in place on the streets, but were now gathered in bunches, no longer marching in phalanxes. People were again able to move about downtown (outside the secured perimeter for the hotel zone where the negotiations were being held).

Inside: Without much warning, the negotiations came to an unexpectedly early conclusion. I got a call at 6:00 p.m. yesterday saying that the talks were over and a press conference with all the trade ministers would be held in 45 minutes. So almost immediately after finishing my Thursday diary for Grist, I ran over to the press center where I could watch the press conference on television and hand out a response statement to reporters.

Most of the key issues had already been addressed by negotiators on Wednesday. A so-called “flexible” approach had been adopted — one that mostly makes the FTAA a hollow shell, and certainly makes it unlikely that countries like Brazil and Argentina will sign on to the investor rights rules that we find so problematic.

That part of the agreement stuck once the trade ministers themselves arrived in town and got down to work on Thursday. All they still needed to address was a troublesome paragraph with some meager language calling for the creation of a work group on labor and environmental issues. Guess what happened? Over the course of the day, the language disappeared completely. In general, though, the outcome is a success: The threat that multinational companies can pose to environmental protections has been dissipated to a large degree.

So, now it’s time to offer some thoughts as I decompress from the week.

It’s been an interesting couple of months on this World Trade Summit Beach Tour. First, the collapse of WTO talks in Cancun. Then, a hollow agreement with no real substance in Miami. It’s time to feel good about the work we’re doing and the impact that it’s having.

But it’s also no time to rest easy on the trade front. In recognition of the fact that its trade agenda was beginning to stall in big international agreements, the Bush administration has embarked on a series of bilateral free-trade deals (with an individual country or with a small number of countries). It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy — get countries to run after each other in their eager desire to partner up with the U.S. (no matter the real consequences for their economies, people, and the environment).

The most important smaller agreement in the short term is one that is supposed to be completed next month with five Central American countries. But the U.S. is now negotiating in every region of the world and, taken together, these agreements — with more than 20 countries — become extremely significant. We will have to prepare to deal with them.

But, with the trade agenda in the large multi-country agreements stalled, we also have some real opportunities ahead to work on alternatives that can address some fundamental problems with the global economy (for example, lack of disclosure by U.S. companies of their environmental, labor, and human-rights practices abroad). It’s time to inject a much more positive, proactive note into our work.

As I write this, I realize that, if I have one regret for the week, it’s that I didn’t make it out to the convergence center where many of the demonstrators gathered. It was at the convergence center in Seattle during the WTO meetings and protests in 1999 that I had the most proactive, positive experience of my time there. Good, hearty, free food for all; puppet-making in one corner; a bicycle library (bicycles to be borrowed and returned) on a wall; a general, welcoming sense of calm — the convergence center is set apart in my memories of that week.

Even though I didn’t quite make it there this time, that’s the vision I’ll carry in my mind as I leave Miami.