Is it really in Mexicos best interest to support the Free Trade Area of the Americas?
You’ll have to share your duty-free access to the U.S. A: Certainly it will add competition to something we had exclusively to ourselves. We were the only country that had the key to the U.S. market without tariffs. Now, many other countries are getting that. We believe that the FTAA’s main purpose should be to benefit the smaller, poorer economies and regions of America, reduce the underdevelopment in Latin America, and reduce the number of poor families. And it has to be an agreement where the whole hemispheric bloc will become more competitive against the Asian or European blocs. The FTAA must have all of these things for Mexico to support it. It should have social cohesion resources [of the kind the European Union gave its poorer new members] to help the smaller countries grow. It has to give great consideration to the asymmetries, assuring very different treatment for the U.S. compared to Haiti, for example. We have to give the small countries the necessary advantages so that they
