ARCHIVE: U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement
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The U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed on June 6, 2003 by a representative of President Bush. The next step will be sending the agreement to Congress for ratification. Although the negotiations for the agreement were completed in December, the Bush Administration delayed the signing of the deal after Chile voted against the U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing war in Iraq.
While the text was released to the public by the USTR on April 3, 2003, neither U.S. nor Chilean citizens were allowed to provide meaningful input while the agreement was under negotiation. Representatives of industrial, agricultural, and banking interests were allowed full access to the process while citizens were kept out in the cold.
The U.S.-Chile FTA replicates the most problematic provisions of NAFTA and fails to meet the negotiating objectives on labor and the environment determined by Congress in the Trade Act of 2002 (Fast Track). It is problematic for many of the same reasons as the U.S.-Singapore FTA.
Additional Resources
In The Spotlight
- CTC Press Release: U.S.-Chile Trade Agreement No Model for Future Agreements
- The Uses of Chile: How Politics Trumped Truth in the Neo-Liberal Revision of Chile’s Development