November 8, 2003
STEEL?:
Brazilian trade impasse gives way (Jeffrey Sparshott, 11/07/03, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Brazil yesterday softened its position against U.S. agricultural subsidies, potentially making room for compromise in talks to create a 34-nation trade zone in the hemisphere.Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, met yesterday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick in a hastily called meeting meant to help break a stalemate in Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations.
If completed, the trade zone would cover about 800 million people and about $13 trillion in production of goods and services, according to a General Accounting Office report.
Of course, the fact that our economy is over $10 Trillion of that amount has something to do with it.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 8, 2003 8:06 AM
Someday, someone will begin to notice the hell-of-a-job Bob Zoellick is doing as Trade Rep. He has made a lot out of the cards he has been dealt (an exhausted multilateral trade framework, recalcitrant G10 "allies" in the EU, and a Republican President who could not afford to hand the trade demagogues all the ammo to shoot him..)
Posted by: MG at November 8, 2003 3:04 PMIf such a free-trade zone ever becomes reality, it's not too much of a fantasy to project the US producing 45% of the entire world's economic activity within twenty years.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 9, 2003 7:43 AMIt would also result in the agriculture and manufacturing sector's contribution declining rapidly.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 9, 2003 7:46 AMWe''re already a third:
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2en/globalgdp.html
Posted by: oj at November 9, 2003 7:55 AM