How will the FTAA effect development?
Our hemisphere is characterized by enormous inequalities between and within countries. The United States has a GDP equal to 75% of the total goods and services produced in the hemisphere. Its capacity to mobilize technological and capital resources is far greater than that of countries in the southern part of the Americas. Therefore, trade agreements must include a balanced and sustainable strategy for social integration, and the problem of foreign debt needs to be addressed as part of this strategy. Foreign debt still has a harmful effect on the economies of most FTAA countries because it greatly reduces governments’ capacity to invest in key areas of development such as housing, health, education and the environment. Governments are forced to divert scarce financial resources to pay off the combined costs of the debt and the interest payments from the debt. The FTAA will effectively locks in place, and create legal structures to enforce, the structural adjustment programs implemented
