Friday April 6 9:49 PM ET
Violence Erupts at Americas Trade Meet

By Doug Palmer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Anti-free trade protesters bombarded police with Molotov cocktails and rocks on Friday outside a hotel where Argentine President Fernando de la Rua and Western hemisphere trade ministers were meeting with business leaders.

Dressed in riot gear, police fired rubber bullets and shot tear gas to disperse a crowd of several hundred protesters gathered at a major road intersection near the hotel.

Evoking memories of violent clashes that overshadowed a world trade meeting in 1999 in Seattle, opponents of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) pact also smashed bank windows and spray-painted anti-trade slogans on buildings at an earlier thousands-strong march through Buenos Aires.

``Political leaders, don't come to us with this FTAA, because the FTAA is designed to exploit our people even more,'' said Hugo Moyano, an official with the Argentine umbrella union General Labor Confederation (CGT), said before the march.

The violence contrasted with otherwise peaceful protests this week as trade officials have worked on a blueprint for a next phase of talks to create the world's largest free-trade zone stretching from Canada to Chile.

The meeting is in part in preparation for an April 20-22 gathering of the hemisphere's leaders in Quebec City, where the local mayor has urged the summit be canceled for fear of violent Seattle-like demonstrations.

The Americas trade deal, that could be sealed by 2005, would create a free-trade zone linking more than 783 million people who produced $11.4 trillion in goods and services in 1999.

But social activists and nongovernmental groups say the accord would help line the pockets of corporate giants while exacerbating poverty for millions of Latin Americans.

On Friday, regional business leaders attending the sixth Americas Business Forum presented their ideas for the FTAA during an evening session with De la Rua and the trade ministers.

Coming into this week's meeting, the United States supported a Chilean proposal to wrap up negotiations by early 2004, instead of the original date of 2005 established by Western hemisphere
leaders at a summit in Miami in December 1994.

Faced with strong opposition from Brazil, who argued the talks were too complicated to conclude ahead of schedule, the United States backed away from the Chilean proposal.

But the United States still wants countries to agree on specific milestones for moving forward in the negotiations, especially in the key area of market access, U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick said.

``We need to draw together the serious work that has already been done and figure out ways to add momentum to the negotiations,'' he said.

Canada also favors giving negotiators a timetable to meet.

``The bulk of the discussions today on FTAA was on setting milestones toward the 2005 target,'' Canadian International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said.

But Latin Americans complained U.S. negotiators did not have a mandate to adequately address two issues of concern.

``We are convinced that these will be difficult and complex negotiations because there are problems with (U.S.) agriculture subsidies and anti-dumping laws,'' Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer said.

Latin American countries have pushed the United States to be more forthcoming on possible changes to its anti-dumping laws, which they fear could become a barrier to their exports as their manufacturing sector grows.

Latin American countries want the United States also to agree to talks on reducing its huge domestic farm subsidies, which they say give U.S. producers an unfair trade advantage.

Trade ministers hoped to wrap up work on a negotiating blueprint for the next 18 months when they meet on Saturday.

(With additional reporting by Gilbert Le Gras)

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