Summit Of The Americas

President Bush, mired in a second-term slump, is scheduled to arrive today in this Argentine seaside resort where protesters are gathering and security is extremely tight for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas. The president's five-day trip to Latin America -- he heads to Brazil and Panama after attending the opening session of the summit Friday -- could be a welcome distraction from recent woes.

A hemispheric summit to promote job creation and the spread of democracy throughout the Americas opened here Friday amid raucous anti-U.S. demonstrations and deep divisions among participating nations over the Bush administration's free-trade agenda. A group of about 200 protesters attempting to breach the security cordon around the meeting site clashed with riot police about six blocks from the hotel where President Bush and other heads of state were meeting.

President Bush has said immigration reform ranks near the top of his second-term agenda, but he and Mexican President Vicente Fox passed up an opportunity this weekend to discuss the controversial issue at a hemispheric summit here. The omission raised fresh questions about whether Bush will be able to push through Congress a guest-worker program that is dividing members of his own party.

President Bush left the country before the conclusion of a two-day summit here as key South American leaders rejected the White House's vision for a free-trade zone that would stretch from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America. Fierce opposition from the populist presidents of the continent's three largest economies -- Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela -- thwarted the resuscitation of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA.

Undeterred by a setback at the Summit of the Americas, President Bush on Sunday renewed his drive for hemispheric free trade, declaring that open markets would energize economies and foster social justice at a time when some in Latin America sought to "roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades."

Three months after taking office, a deferential President Bush made his debut on the world stage by embracing -- and charming -- Latin America. "I grew up in a world where if you treat your neighbor well, it's a good start to developing a wholesome community," he told his 33 counterparts at the Summit of the Americas. Three years later, Bush is deeply unpopular in much of the region.

Six Canadians accused of planning violence at this weekend's Summit of the Americas have been arrested, and officials Wednesday displayed seized weapons that included small explosives and smoke grenades. Inspector Robert Poeti of the Quebec Provincial Police said increased security for the Friday-Sunday summit, where 34 leaders from the Western Hemisphere will gather, led to the arrests of two 21-year-old men driving into Quebec City and four men in the Montreal area.

After three months of diplomatic warmups, President Bush takes on the hemisphere this weekend when he joins 33 other leaders of the Americas in Quebec City to work out details for the world's largest and most ambitious trade bloc. "The sooner we get a free-trade agreement for the Americas in place, the better off the continent will be," Bush said Thursday as he prepared for his first international summit.

Police and protesters battled at the barricades Friday with tear gas, pepper spray and chunks of cement as 34 heads of state from the breadth of the Americas gathered to embark on what President Bush called the building of "a hemisphere of liberty." On the streets of this 400-year-old city, the protesters railed against the potential human costs of political and commercial globalization.

One is a young cellist whose long blond hair cascades over preppy attire. Another is a professor of Native American studies. A third is a septuagenarian engineer who claims he can still do a 5K race in less than 20 minutes. A fourth is a college junior majoring in consumer affairs who drove up with friends from Vermont.