Cuban, Venezuelan Leaders Woo Latin American Nations to Trade Pact Minus U.S. Leadership
By Anita Snow Associated Press Writer Published: Apr 29, 2005
HAVANA (AP) - Hoping to create a model for developing nations across the Western Hemisphere, the leftist presidents of Cuba and Venezuela strengthened their economic ties and promoted an alternative trade pact not led by the United States.
The meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro in Cuba coincided with an international meeting here of opponents to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, which failed to take effect as scheduled early this year.
Both men were addressing the gathering Friday morning.
"Venezuela used to be an American colony," Chavez told business people from his country Thursday at a trade fair exhibiting their products here. "Now we are liberated, we are free to make these commercial integration agreements with all countries."
U.S. officials have expressed alarm over the deepening alliance between Castro and Chavez, saying that Venezuela has become increasingly authoritarian as it tightens its links to communist Cuba.
On Thursday, representatives of the two countries signed agreements for Cuba to buy from Venezuela US$412 million (euro319) worth of new products, including food, furniture, household goods, clothing, shoes, tires, as well as plastic made from petrochemicals and other raw materials.
Products of Venezuelan origen exported to Cuba will now be exempt from custom duties and other Cuban taxes under accords signed Thursday
In the evening, dressed in elegant business suits and ties, the two presidents stood before hundreds of officials and business people from both nations to sign a document further expanding their countries' cooperation under the Bolivarian Alternative trade pact.
As part of the agreement, Cuba will help the South American nation train 40,000 new doctors and help set up hundreds of free health care centers.
It will also continue to send Cuban doctors to Venezuela under a program called Plan Barrio, increasing the number to 30,000 throughout the country by year's end. It will also continue to deepen its involvement in other programs in Venezuela, such as literacy efforts.
"We are two people who care about the future," Fidel Castro said of himself and Chavez during the gathering, which was broadcast live across the island on state television. He also praised Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution," telling Venezuelans at the gathering, "what we have done in 46 years, you have accomplished in a five-year term."
But while the alternative trade pact endorsed by the leftist leaders was sure to appeal to anti-FTAA political groups, it seemed unlikely to get broad support from the region's governments, which largely ignored the proposal Chavez and Castro made late last year.
Central American nations, Mexico and Chile are firm supporters of the U.S.-backed trade pact. While Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said the 34-nation proposed free trade zone is "off the agenda," members of his administration discussed the pact with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Brazil earlier this week.
Chavez, who arrived in Cuba late Wednesday, was joining Castro at the gathering of FTAA opponents - mostly little-known activists from 36 nations - Friday morning.
Together, they were to promote their own Boliviarian Alternative for the Americas, named for South American independence hero Simon Bolivar, frequently invoked by the Chavez government.
While the United States would not direct the pact as it would FTAA, member countries evidently would still be able to individually negotiate their own deals with U.S. trade partners.
Despite the bashing of U.S.-backed FTAA, Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a top crude supplier to the United States. Most trade between Cuba and the United States is prohibited by more than four decades of U.S. trade sanctions.
Jose Garcia, a professor specializing in Latin America affairs at New Mexico State University, said he knew of no other regional governments that had expressed interest in the alternative pact, which was first announced during a visit here by Chavez in December.
"It is something that may be received by those groups with firm positions against the long tendency throughout Latin America in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," Garcia said in a telephone interview.
First announced at hemispheric summit in Miami 11 years ago, the pact joining the hemisphere from Alaska to Argentina was supposed to go into effect in January, but the deadline came and went with little notice.
Earlier Thursday, Castro joined Chavez at the opening of new Havana office of the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. Venezuela's government-controlled Banco Industrial de Venezuela also opened an office in Havana on Thursday, while more than 200 Venezuelan companies were displaying their wares this week at a trade fair on the capital's outskirts.
Under Chavez, Venezuela in 2000 began selling 53,000 barrels of crude a day to oil-import-dependent Cuba under preferential terms, allowing the island to withstand tough economic times that began with the Soviet Union's collapse more than a decade ago.
A Venezuelan oil company spokeswoman said Thursday that it has since increased oil shipments to Cuba to 80,000 to 90,000 barrels a day.
Communist Cuba, in turn, has sent 14,000 Cuban doctors to work in Venezuela.
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Associated Press writers Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Chris Toothaker in Caracas; Lisa J. Adams in Mexico City; Eduardo Gallardo in Santiago, Chile; and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana contributed to this report.
