Bush's Free Trade failure

The South American summit was clearly
a disaster for the United States. There is no hope of getting the Free Trade Area of the Americas plan approved.

"A two-day summit meeting of leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations in Argentina, attended by President Bush, broke up Saturday without a clear agreement on when and how to resume stalled talks aimed at achieving a hemispherewide free trade agreement.
Mr. Bush had hoped to persuade his counterparts from Latin America and the Caribbean to deliver a resounding endorsement of the plan, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. But suspicions of American intentions prevailed in the end, and by late Saturday no final communiqué had been issued.
The White House, smarting from the failure of the talks, sought to play down the importance of an agreement."

The only message to come out of the summit was the one that protesters made as they angrily denounced the U.S. in general and President Bush in particular.
It's a real shame because the free trade agreement is something the U.S. has been working on for a long time, but now that Bush has turned the U.S. into and international pariah it is unlikely to ever happen.

Oh, but wait, you say! 29 of the countries are on board in supporting the U.S. plan and only five countries are opposed.
That sounds promising until you look at a map of South America and see that those five unhappy countries - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela - make up the vast majority of the South American continent.

George W. is without a doubt one of the worst presidents we have ever had when it comes to diplomacy. I have no doubt that Daddy Bush could have pushed this deal through with no problem, (same with Clinton) but then Daddy Bush was a 10-times better diplomat than Junior even when he was throwing up all over the Japanese prime minister.