In the spotlight

While free trade advocates tout the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as a way to eliminate trade barriers to promote economic growth, they are erecting barricades, guarded by heavily armed police, to shut out the voices of those most affected by these policies when they meet in Miami November 20-21.

With the Miami negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) fast approaching and the ten-year anniversary of NAFTA not far behind, new reports by Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy expose how agricultural trade agreements in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States have increased rural poverty and inequality, threatened small family farmers, and hurt consumers.

While free trade advocates tout the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as a way to eliminate trade barriers to promote economic growth, they are erecting barricades, guarded by heavily armed police, to shut out the voices of those most affected by these policies when they meet in Miami November 20-21.

After the collapse of the WTO trade talks in Cancun in September, the Bush Administration is once again promoting the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at upcoming negotiations in Miami on November 20-21 that will be met by thousands of protestors from across the hemisphere.

Across Brazil's vast landscape, poor people, in groups of hundreds, are moving onto land that is claimed by others. The poor are demanding that land be distributed to them as part of an ongoing national agrarian program.