EDITORIAL

Translated By Paula van de Werken

March 17, 2006
Hoy Online of Ecuador - Original Article (Spanish)    

[Hoy Online].


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The indigenous movement has roundly rejected the Free Trade Agreement (the TLC) with the United States, because it claims that it will hurt the majority of small producers. The central argument of CONAIE [Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador [], posted on their Web page, is the profound difference between the two economies.

"The $11 trillion economy of the United States represents 28% of the world’s GDP. It manages between 25% and 28% of the world’s trade in goods and services. Ecuador has a GDP of some $30 billion (the U.S. has an economy 367 times larger than that of Ecuador).  Ecuador represents 0.21% of total imports to the United States. That is to say, of every $100 of goods purchased from other countries by the United States, 21 cents goes to Ecuador. And if we exclude petroleum, it would be six cents.  In research and development, Ecuador spends $27 million a year, while the United States invests $300 billion."

It continues: "In the agricultural sector, the average yield per hectare in the U.S. for products that are considered strategic, such as rice, barley, corn, potatoes and wheat, is 421% greater than in Ecuador: that is to say by a ratio of 4 to 1, U.S. farmers are more productive. And sure, this can't be explained without taking into account that the United States subsidizes its agricultural industry with approximately $95 billion per year, which is equivalent to over three times Ecuador's entire GDP."

Numbers like this would frighten anyone, but it is a misleading argument to explain simply that out of every $100 spent by the U.S. for products imported from around the world, only 21 cents goes to Ecuador. These 21 cents represent 61.5% of our total exports to all of the America's, and 50.3% of our total sales to the entire planet in 2005, according to the statistics of the [Ecuadorian] Central Bank.

Banner of the Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador.

Home Page [Spanish]

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Critics of the FTC have suggested as an alternative, a strengthening of regional economic integration, forgetting that in over three decades, the Andean Community hasn’t even been able to agree to a common foreign tariff scheme. They also fail to consider that, in 2005, Ecuador sold almost $2 billion of goods to all of members of the Association of Latin American Integration combined, and purchased just over $4 billion of goods. So what is this strategic partnership that Ecuador should negotiate?  CONAIE seems to forget that 15,000 families depend on the export of broccoli, nor has it given alternatives to the 100,000 workers who depend on the export of flowers to an open American market.

CONAIE has tried to regain the momentum in the FTC debate through a radical argument against the FTC, and has mobilized the indigenous populations of the Andean region, without telling them that the fruits and vegetables that they produce have a much greater opportunity in an open United States market.

Op-ed from Ecuador Opposed to the Free Trade Deal with U.S.