There are currently numerous and heated debates regarding the economic integration of the Americas, among which two stand out for the controversy that they raise and for the context in which they are inserted: about the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) and about the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Ours America).
THE Shoulder strap it is, without a doubt, the most controversial among the proposals of economic blocs around the world. This is because there is no consensus regarding its implementation, neither among the American countries nor in the internal context of the United States, which were responsible for carrying out this proposition.
In 1994, during the Summit of the Americas, a meeting was held at which the idealization of the FTAA was established, with forecast of its creation in the year 2005, involving all independent nations of the Americas, with the exception of Cuba. However, this planning was neither consolidated nor carried out in practice.
The big criticisms regarding the FTAA revolve around the possible disadvantages that countries would suffer if this agreement were signed. On the part of the United States Congress, there is an argument that the establishment of an economic bloc with the peripheral countries of the continent would only bring harm to the North American economy. This would lead to a stampede of industries and productions in general for these countries and would intensify the internal competition on primary products, harming, in theory, local agreements.
In relation to some countries in Latin America, especially Venezuela, the main criticism would be that the FTAA would only bring harm to America Latin America by consolidating the economic dominance of the United States in the region and expanding its influence, transforming the area into a true “backyard” of the North Americans.
On the part of some countries, such as Brazil, there is not a total denial of the FTAA, but a negotiation of its terms. There is a desire that, with the establishment of this bloc, the United States will reduce protectionism against the entry of some products, such as soybeans, steel, orange juice and many others, which have been rejected by the US government due to internal pressure from local producers. Such an impasse, without a doubt, is the great obstacle to the consolidation of the treaty.
In response to the FTAA, the Alba it was then proposed, in 2001, by the then president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez – a staunch critic and enemy of the United States – and carried out in 2004 in the city of Havana, Cuba. The main objective of ALBA is to achieve mutual integration between Latin American countries in a possible left front of these countries against political-economic domination and dependence. The bases of these goals are eventually inspired by the ideals of Simon Bolivar, which preached a total union of the Americas in the face of European domination.
Initially, this agreement only included the integration between Cuba and Venezuela, basically carrying out the exchange of some products and services. On the one hand, the Venezuelans offered oil and, on the other, the Cubans contributed with the export of doctors and health services. Currently, however, this bloc already has seven other countries, especially Bolivia and Nicaragua, and is coming working even for the creation of a single currency (the Sucre) to replace the dollar in economic relations between these countries.
Regardless of the opinions and debates that exist in the context of the FTAA and ALBA proposals, what we can see is that there are different interests around both. The FTAA would represent a quest to overcome the hegemony of the European Union in terms of the magnitude of the economic blocs, while ALBA would be a front of left-wing Latin American governments that would have both an economic character and a greatness politics.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
