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Corporate giants alone stand to benefit. Consumers, indigenous communities, and ordinary households lose out. Public safety and health will be undermined. Removing "unnecessary barriers to trade" means letting corporate predators plunder freely for profit.
Obama's agenda promotes it. Public disapproval opposes. So do Latin states. In 2005, mass anti-FTAA demonstrations occurred during SOA's Mar del Plata, Argentina gathering. For the first time, the final communique included conflicting statements.
Doing so prevented agreement on FTAA's passage. It also showed America's waning regional influence.
In 2009, Obama again failed to reestablish Washington's preeminence. Wars on terrorism and drugs make more enemies than friends. So does embargoing Cuba, attempting to destabilize Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, and asserting hemispheric military dominance.
Increasingly, Latin America's flexing its sovereign rights. Big brother dominance is rejected. All nations are entitled to manage their own affairs freely. International law prohibits interfering in how other nations govern. For Washington, it's longstanding policy.
SOA 2012 ended like 2009. Joint statement consensus proved impossible. Disagreement this year focused on Cuba's SOA exclusion, Washington's half century embargo, failure to grant it OAS admission, the London/Buenos Aires Malvinas dispute, and America's destructive war on drugs.
Except for Canada, a virtual 51st state under either dominant party, other participating nations oppose America's agenda. For the second straight time, consensus failure produced no closing statement.
Instead, ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) countries - Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela - issued a joint statement, saying they won't attend future SOAs unless Cuba participates and Washington's embargo ends.
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