Over the weekend, Belize's ambassador at large Assad Shoman joined U.S. President George W. Bush and 9 other regional leaders in Mar del Plata, Argentina for the fourth summit of the Americas.
"Creating jobs to fight poverty" was the summit's theme but the real agenda was stalled negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). And it's on the topic of the FTAA that Belize banded together with other Caribbean countries in pressing for special and preferential treatment for smaller economies. The CARICOM clique condemned the bigger economies for breaking promises in the past.
Shoman represented Prime Minister Said Musa and in his address Shoman told the world leaders that the crippling and unpayable public debt is creating poverty and unemployment in Latin America. Shoman said that there can never be free and fair trade in the Americas because the bigger economies subsidize their agricultural industries.
