As bad as things may look across the Americas, turning to protectionism by rejecting the FTAA outright would only make things worse.

Those in the Bush administration who push free trade, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, are correct. Globalization is the future,
and an FTAA is a necessity.

Those who doubt this would do well to look at the benefits of open trade over the past generation.

In the early 1980s, for example, Central America was a region at war with itself. Today, despite the challenges facing this volatile part of the hemisphere, the Central American nations are democracies and are showing signs of economic progress. Foreign investment and breaks on tariffs and duties on imported textiles from this region played a role in this success story.

In South America, Chile and Brazil, which lived under repressive authoritarian rule for many years, are examples of countries where open trade plus proper economic management have led to better standards of living. In Chile, broadening the menu of exports means Chile is much less
dependent on bulk copper sales, which has led to economic stability. In Brazil, the country's efforts to develop a thriving aviation business have made its industry a technological newcomer of sorts.

These trade-driven advantages have created jobs and revenue for Latin American and Caribbean governments. They have also helped dampen inflation in the United States by driving down clothing prices, to the benefit of shoppers and the consumer spending-driven economy. And the United States is better off with the nations of the Americas functioning as democracies and engaging in free enterprise rather than wallowing under military dictatorships and flirting with Marxist ideologies, as was the case in recent history.

For the FTAA to further this progress, it needs healthy trading partners. Right now, that can't be said of many countries in the region. Poverty levels have hit scary proportions. Foreign debts are staggering. Investment by many governments in education and technology is severely hamstrung. And the institutions necessary to promulgate and enforce reasonable environmental and labor rules remain weak and ineffective. That's why the Bush administration should extend the FTAA deadline. Pushing the deadline back to 2010 buys only six years, and it is not enough time to cure every ill. But it's enough of a window to ameliorate the sources of friction and stalemate.

The extra time would:

Give Latin American governments and the International Monetary Fund time to work out of the debt abyss. The 1980s debt crisis was resolved, and the hemisphere profited for it. Clearing the current mess before the FTAA is signed would make the pact stronger.

Create time to institute an effective development grant system, much as the European Union did before its successful integration. The EU faced some of the same disparity issues the FTAA does. While countries like Germany and Britain were powerhouses, others like Spain and Italy lagged behind. The EU pumped development aid into infrastructure and training to help those countries catch up. Of course, the gap between the United States and Latin America is much, much wider. But a similar grant program, perhaps funded by a tax on large foreign exchange purchases and sales, might help narrow the breach to the point where the FTAA is feasible. Such grants must be offered only under the strictest rules to insure the money is not misspent or
diverted to secret personal offshore bank accounts.

Allow other international bodies to resolve complex trade disputes, clearing roadblocks for the FTAA. One of those is the $300 billion or so a year in subsidies handed to farmers in the United States and Europe. Latin America farmers argue these subsidies deprive them of business opportunities. It's not a clear-cut issue, since any state role in agriculture can be termed a "subsidy." The World Trade Organization, the international body created to deal with such disputes, must resolve this issue. The WTO is unlikely to resolve this issue before the FTAA deadline.

Permit careful bargaining to safeguard the wide range of environmental and workplace safety rules that differentiate the regulatory frameworks in the United States from those in other Latin American and Caribbean countries. Ideally, the FTAA should lead to a world where prosperity improves conditions for labor and reasonable protection of the environment, not the other way around.

There are many benefits to free trade, and pursuing open markets has been and should continue to be the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. This is especially true in the Western Hemisphere.

There is nothing keeping Washington from striking free trade deals with individual countries that are in a position to do business with the United States, as was the case with Chile and could be the case with the Central American nations.

But the push for the larger goal, the FTAA, needs to take a deep breath. The rush to the 2004 deadline is unnecessary and counterproductive. Getting the FTAA right is worth waiting until 2010.

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