As trade ministers from across the hemisphere wrapped up their November meeting in Miami, USCIB urged the U.S. and its negotiating partners to continue working toward a broad, market-opening FTAA agreement, despite the failure to make real progress on the negotiating text.

“USCIB urges the U.S. and its negotiating partners to continue to strive for an ambitious FTAA agreement,” said a statement issued at the conclusion of the ministerial.   USCIB said its members “are disappointed that ministers were unable to make substantive progress in Miami.”

The Miami ministerial was viewed as a disappointment in many quarters, since it exposed some of the North-South tensions on market access and the scope of an FTAA agreement that have thus far prevented meaningful progress.  These forces also contributed to the collapse of the September World Trade Organization talks in Cancun.

FTAA partners did reach agreement on a comprehensive framework for continued negotiations that points toward a process for across-the-board obligations in each of the nine negotiating areas, with opportunities for countries to do more in any of these areas.

“This is not ideal, but it is the reality within which we now must proceed,” the USCIB statement said.

USCIB pledged to work with its members, and with business groups in the other FTAA countries, to continue to press negotiators to ensure that a comprehensive, commercially meaningful trade pact can be achieved.  It expressed optimism that, at the end of the day, all parties would recognize the benefits of a broad agreement.

In the lead-up to the Miami ministerial, USCIB joined with other leading U.S. business groups to call for an ambitious FTAA agreement.

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