LATIN AMERICA AWAITS GEORGE BUSH'S "RULES" FOR FREE TRADE New U.S. President George W. Bush is going all out to secure authorization from the Congress for the so-called "fast track" which would allow him to directly negotiate with Latin American nations interested in joining the Free Trade Agreement. In order to obtain this permission, which had always been denied his predecessor, Bill Clinton, by a Republican congress, Bush is expected to play tough during the upcoming "Summit of the Americas," a meeting invented to offset the nine Ibero American Summits which have excluded the United States. On Washington's orders, Cuba has been excluded from the so-called "Summits of the Americas." The Bush administration's eagerness to obtain the fast track is obviously due to its desire to keep Latin American countries on a shorter rein by forcing them to adhere to U.S. dictates if they wish to be part of the regional free trade zone. It can also be expected that during the April Summit, Washington will seek to tighten its economic, political and diplomatic stranglehold on Cuba. Since the Organization of American States conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay in l962, when the United States managed to pressure all Latin American countries except Mexico to break diplomatic relations with Cuba, that policy of isolation has been weakening and the island now maintains relations with all but two Latin American nations. Economic relations have also been reestablished to a great extent. But the renewal of economic and diplomatic relations has not come about because the United States has given up its anti-Cuba policy. Washington continues pressuring the continent to make life impossible for Cuba. Since the island now has achieved international prestige and the respect of the majority of U.N. member nations, the United States can no longer exert the drastic measures against Cuba that it did shortly after the triumph of the Revolution. Despite the U.S. policy of aggression against Cuba, the island's international economic relations continue expanding and diversifying. But U.S. leaders, who have been associated for decades with the anti-Cuba mafia in Miami and who now owe them an even greater debt after the electoral fraud which won Bush the presidency, is now dangling as bait the Free Trade Agreement to Latin American countries. Naturally, joining the profitable regional trade agreement will be conditioned on those nations responding to the interests of Washington. And among those interests is to exert more pressure against the Cuban government. Washington is now not so interested in countries breaking off relations with the island, but rather with blocking the Latin American integration process. And Cuba believes that process, which has already begun, is the only way for the continent's nations to achieve true independence and sovereignty. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
