Public
FTAA.soc/civ/116
November 26, 2003

Original: English

FTAA - COMMITTEE OF GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES ON THE PARTICIPATION OF
CIVIL SOCIETY

CONTRIBUTION IN RESPONSE TO THE OPEN AND ONGOING INVITATION
 

To the Negotiating Groups of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas:

Through studies and presentations completed through my MBA school experience, I have recently concluded that the key ingredient missing in negotiations among the member nations FTAA is empathy for each others’ macroeconomic needs and concerns.

This being the case, I ask that each Negotiating Group participating in next week’s meetings in Miami take it upon themselves to consider the position they are putting their negotiating partners in via their positions and negotiation requests.

Here at MBA school I have recently participated in some very well-articulated class discussions on the currency devaluation, wealth destruction, and poverty of great masses of peoples in many South American, Central American, and Caribbean nations. These discussions have included the perspective of some of our MBA students from South America. I am confident that the negotiating representatives of the U.S.A. and Canada are aware of the terrible difficulties inflicted on so many peoples of these nations as a result of their poverty.

We have also received a lot of sound economic and financial training throughout our studies on the need of developed nations and all modern-day businesses to secure sustainable and even distinctive competitive advantages to earn year-over-year profits in excess of their cost of capital. We have also learned that companies that take their eyes off this over-arching requirement do not survive in the marketplace. I am also quite confident that the negotiating representatives of the developing and underdeveloped countries of the Americas understand these needs of the developed nations and their member companies to maintain economic viability.

Therefore, I also ask that the Negotiating Groups take the responsibility upon themselves to believe that win-win solutions, which meet the greatest macroeconomic needs of all member countries, can be developed via the FTAA’s official and unofficial meetings. I also ask that the FTAA Negotiating Groups and parties make a commitment to each other and to themselves that they will find win-win solutions to the trade concerns of our hemisphere.

The business building which houses my MBA program is named for N. E. Tanner, a Canadian who in the 1950s led the largest and most successful entrepreneurial venture in Canada to that time — the trans-Canadian pipeline project. I know only one Tanner quote, but it is a good one – “Service is the rent we pay for living in this world of ours.”

Please give honest, empathetic service-minded consideration to each other as you create solutions to the complex trade issues you will address this coming week.


Duane A. Bitner