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Little love for U.S. at Latin summit

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 22, 2006

CORDOBA, Argentina - Venezuela formally entered Mercosur on Friday, increasing the South American trade bloc's economic might and vowing to transform the policy organization into a force for social change.

President Nestor Kirchner welcomed the addition of oil-rich Venezuela, the continent's No. 3 economy after Brazil and Argentina, launching a round of speeches by Latin America's leading leftists, who asserted the region's independence from a Washington model many of their citizens see as a failure.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's anti-U.S. leader, urged Mercosur to put aside internal squabbles and stand against the U.S.-backed free-market policies he say "enslaved" the region in debt to the International Monetary Fund.

"Latin America has all it needs to become a great world power. Let's not put any limits on our dreams. Let's make them reality," Chavez said.

The addition of Venezuela gives Mercosur a combined market of 250-million people and a combined output of $1-trillion in goods and services annually, said Brazil's president, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva. NAFTA, combining the markets of the United States, Canada and Mexico, has 450-million consumers and a combined gross product of about $14-trillion.

Silva said "no one's talking anymore" about the U.S.-backed Free Trade of the Americas proposal blocked by Venezuela and the Mercosur nations last year.

The Mercosur leaders also were concluding a deal Friday to foster greater trade with Cuba, despite a 45-year-old U.S. embargo of the island.

Such developments have worried those who lament the decline of U.S. influence in the region.

Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said Venezuela's entry should be a "wake-up call" for U.S. officials who have been distracted from Latin America by conflict in the Middle East.

"Mercosur seems to have less and less to do with free trade and more to do with politics," he said.

Once confined to the nations of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, Mercosur now ranges north to Venezuela's Caribbean coast.

Bolivian official lobbies Washington for trade deal

Also Friday, Bolivia's vice president said that Washington's view of his nation's close relationship with Venezuela and Cuba is "marked by disinformation and prejudice," and that Bolivia wants strong alliances with many countries, including the United States.

During his first official trip to Washington, Vice President Alvaro Garcia has been lobbying a reluctant Congress to extend a preferential trade deal with Bolivia.

Garcia said Bolivia wants to see the United States extend for two years tariff breaks the country receives for its participation in combating the drug trade. The program, which also covers Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, creates exports worth $300-million a year in Bolivia and 50,000 jobs.

[Last modified July 22, 2006, 01:12:39]