SANTIAGO, Chile — Mexico's negotiations to join the United States and Canada in a free-trade agreement are whetting the appetites of other Latin countries.
Chile wants in, too--and soon. So does Colombia. Virtually all countries in the region, except for Communist Cuba, endorse President Bush's Enterprise for the America's Initiative, a proposal for a free-trade area that would stretch from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
It would be an economic community to rival Europe's, and the U.S.-Mexican negotiations are seen as the key first test of the concept in Latin America. Some countries, however, don't want to wait for the results of that test to join the North American market themselves.
"What is clear is that there are countries in Latin America--I would say Chile is the most clear example--that are ready and indeed anxious to begin a negotiation process," said Gert Rosenthal, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
"They're pushing," Rosenthal said. "There is a perception that Mexico is getting into a moving bus which the others might miss if they don't move quickly."
Export-oriented Latin Americans see duty-free, unrestricted access to the rich U.S. market as their chance to follow in the pawprints of the "Asian Tigers"--Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore--that have prospered, thanks to export booms. The sooner they get in, many believe, the more fields of opportunity for sales they can stake out.
The others, however, apparently are going to have to wait. The signals from Washington indicate that free-trade negotiations with other Latin American countries will not begin until an agreement is reached with Mexico.
The expected delay is frustrating for countries on the back burner, but Rosenthal called it realistic. "These are very complicated negotiations," he said. "They provoke adverse reactions among certain constituencies, and I really doubt whether the U.S. government could in practice carry out more than one negotiation at a time."
Luis Eduardo Rodriguez, a Colombian economist who specializes in international trade issues, said an agreement between the United States and Mexico would be an important test.
"But clear results cannot be expected in the short term," Rodriguez said. "The problem is that while we will see immediate effects in both countries, the long-term impact will not be known for five years or more.
