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1,200 | <s>[INST] But Mr. Menem says he's confident Argentina's Congress will [/INST] soon give him the right to make these decisions when and how he sees fit. </s> |
1,201 | <s>[INST] "All of the reforms we've proposed since 1989, [/INST] including the early, most difficult ones, received a good response from the Congress," he says. </s> |
1,202 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 382 of 500 Southern Exposure: Latin Nations, Unsure Of U.S. Motives, Make Their Own Trade Pacts --- Massachusetts [/INST] Textile Firm Encounters a Tough Sell On South American Visit --- Battling Fallout From Nafta Author: By Robert S. Greenberger and Jonathan Friedland Publication info: Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 09 Jan 1996: A1. </s> |
1,203 | <s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Tell that to [/INST] Larry Liebenow, president of Quaker Fabric Corp. </s> |
1,204 | <s>[INST] On a trip to Argentina, [/INST] he gets an earful about the competition. </s> |
1,205 | <s>[INST] Eduardo Esrubilsky, president of Etamine SA, tells him that for [/INST] the past year his company, which sells fabrics to upholsterers, has been able to import textiles duty-free from Brazil. </s> |
1,206 | <s>[INST] Quaker products are superior and some are [/INST] competitively priced, Mr. Esrubilsky acknowledges, but the American goods face a 25% tariff. </s> |
1,207 | <s>[INST] Mr. Clinton's Miami promises called for Chile's [/INST] quick entry into Nafta, the trading bloc encompassing Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. </s> |
1,208 | <s>[INST] That, in turn, was to pave the way for other [/INST] Latin nations to join an expanding free-trade zone that would give new access to companies like Quaker. </s> |
1,209 | <s>[INST] As Latin nations knit themselves a crazy-quilt of [/INST] trading arrangements, giant multinational companies with factories inside these blocs can benefit from tariff reductions. </s> |
1,210 | <s>[INST] But businesspeople like Mr. Liebenow [/INST] are left on the outside looking in. </s> |
1,211 | <s>[INST] "The greatest victims of tariff and nontrade [/INST] barriers are small and medium-size companies," says U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor. </s> |
1,212 | <s>[INST] Full text: Flanked by palm trees, President Clinton stood amid cheering [/INST] Latin American leaders at a Miami summit one year ago and vowed to stretch a bountiful free-trade zone across the hemisphere. </s> |
1,213 | <s>[INST] On a trip to Argentina, [/INST] he gets an earful about the competition. </s> |
1,214 | <s>[INST] Eduardo Esrubilsky, president of Etamine SA, tells him that for [/INST] the past year his company, which sells fabrics to upholsterers, has been able to import textiles duty-free from Brazil. </s> |
1,215 | <s>[INST] Quaker products are superior and some are [/INST] competitively priced, Mr. Esrubilsky acknowledges, but the American goods face a 25% tariff. </s> |
1,216 | <s>[INST] "Today, you'd have to be stupid [/INST] to not take advantage of tariff-free goods from Brazil," he says. </s> |
1,217 | <s>[INST] Mr. Clinton's Miami promises called for Chile's [/INST] quick entry into Nafta, the trading bloc encompassing Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. </s> |
1,218 | <s>[INST] That, in turn, was to pave the way for other [/INST] Latin nations to join an expanding free-trade zone that would give new access to companies like Quaker. </s> |
1,219 | <s>[INST] But wrangling between Congress and the White [/INST] House has stalled Chile's admittance, most likely until after the November elections. </s> |
1,220 | <s>[INST] And Nafta's failure to produce the promised cornucopia of [/INST] American jobs, along with Mexico's economic troubles, has turned free trade into an election-year liability. </s> |
1,221 | <s>[INST] The Clinton administration blames congressional Republicans for delays in new [/INST] trade deals, though many Democrats, with their strong ties to organized labor, show little enthusiasm as well. </s> |
1,222 | <s>[INST] And Mr. Clinton's own political [/INST] advisers are urging a go-slow course until the election. </s> |
1,223 | <s>[INST] The upshot: Latin partners are making plans [/INST] that exclude the U.S. Quaker and other medium-size American firms suffer the most. </s> |
1,224 | <s>[INST] As Latin nations knit themselves a crazy-quilt of [/INST] trading arrangements, giant multinational companies with factories inside these blocs can benefit from tariff reductions. </s> |
1,225 | <s>[INST] But businesspeople like Mr. Liebenow [/INST] are left on the outside looking in. </s> |
1,226 | <s>[INST] "The greatest victims of tariff and nontrade [/INST] barriers are small and medium-size companies," says U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor. </s> |
1,227 | <s>[INST] Meanwhile, business is booming among Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and [/INST] Paraguay, whose economies have a gross domestic product of $650 billion, 70% of South America's total. </s> |
1,228 | <s>[INST] Their customs union, known as Mercosur, [/INST] took the final step last year toward eliminating most tariffs. </s> |
1,229 | <s>[INST] Chile, feeling jilted by Washington, may soon join them; [/INST] it also just signed a free-trade pact with Mexico and is discussing one with Canada. </s> |
1,230 | <s>[INST] Even Guyana, which once pushed self-reliance by forcing citizens [/INST] to eat bread made from locally grown rice, is talking with Brazil and Venezuela about opening borders. </s> |
1,231 | <s>[INST] Latin nations are also being wooed ardently by [/INST] the European Union, which hopes to have a free-trade pact with Mercosur by 2005. </s> |
1,232 | <s>[INST] "Right now, the U.S. government [/INST] is just out of the process," says Mr. Liebenow. </s> |
1,233 | <s>[INST] A weeklong trip to Argentina and Chile with Mr. [/INST] Liebenow shows Latin executives' disappointment with Washington, which they believe is again reneging on lofty promises. </s> |
1,234 | <s>[INST] Listen to Lavreano Gili, a director of [/INST] P.M. Chile SA, a textile importer in Santiago, the Chilean capital. </s> |
1,235 | <s>[INST] He remembers the U.S. embargo in 1989 [/INST] of Chilean grapes, following allegations that two grapes had been injected with cyanide. </s> |
1,236 | <s>[INST] The charge proved to be a hoax, [/INST] but growers lost a fortune as their produce rotted on the dock. </s> |
1,237 | <s>[INST] The Miami promises are another example "of the [/INST] U.S. talking about free trade and then not acting on it," Mr. Gili says bitterly. </s> |
1,238 | <s>[INST] Such emotions strengthen a resurgent [/INST] Brazil, which remains wary of free trade. </s> |
1,239 | <s>[INST] It expects to benefit if [/INST] the U.S. lets a regional vacuum persist. </s> |
1,240 | <s>[INST] Those trends disappoint Mr. Liebenow, who in 1993 lobbied in [/INST] Washington for Nafta -- shorthand for the North American Free Trade Agreement -- during the battle over its passage. </s> |
1,241 | <s>[INST] Mr. Liebenow, 51, who previously worked [/INST] for corporations in Argentina and Mexico, knows the value of exports. </s> |
1,242 | <s>[INST] , home was once a flourishing town [/INST] whose red-brick textile mills sent cloth to New York by the shipload. </s> |
1,243 | <s>[INST] By 1989, when Mr. Liebenow and a group of private [/INST] investors acquired Quaker, most textile companies had fled south to avoid unions or had fallen victim to foreign competition. </s> |
1,244 | <s>[INST] Yet the partners poured money into [/INST] modernization, believing exports would give Quaker a profitable future. </s> |
1,245 | <s>[INST] Five years ago, Canada was Quaker's only [/INST] foreign market; today, the company has customers across Latin America, Asia and Europe. </s> |
1,246 | <s>[INST] Exports account for 20% of its $180 million annual sales [/INST] and for more than half the payroll growth during the past five years, to 1,600 workers from 1,100. </s> |
1,247 | <s>[INST] But now, during a stop in Chile, Mr. [/INST] Liebenow discovers another way that Latin America's evolving trade groups are bad for his business. </s> |
1,248 | <s>[INST] Speaking fluent Spanish, he offers furniture manufacturer [/INST] Antonio Deik Aure exclusive Chilean rights to some of Quaker's 700 fabric patterns. </s> |
1,249 | <s>[INST] Chile's new pact with Mexico eliminates most [/INST] tariffs between them, while Chile still imposes tariffs on U.S. goods. </s> |
1,250 | <s>[INST] Mr. Deik worries that some Quaker customers in [/INST] Mexico will now ship Quaker products duty-free to his own customers, or competitors, in Chile. </s> |
1,251 | <s>[INST] That, he says, would erode [/INST] the value of any exclusive agreement with Quaker. </s> |
1,252 | <s>[INST] Mexico is one of his biggest markets, [/INST] and he can't control what happens to his goods after they are sold. </s> |
1,253 | <s>[INST] Later, referring to the Mexican-Chilean agreement, he [/INST] complains, "This is part of the whole problem {with} all these side deals. </s> |
1,254 | <s>[INST] It's tough to develop a coherent, [/INST] long-term business strategy when you're being shot at from all sides". </s> |
1,255 | <s>[INST] European firms, seeking to offset weak demand at [/INST] home, are among the most aggressive in exploring Latin America's booming and newly opened economies. </s> |
1,256 | <s>[INST] Proof is abundant in Mr. Deik's small [/INST] showroom, draped with fabric samples from England, France, Italy and Belgium. </s> |
1,257 | <s>[INST] Two European telecommunications giants, Spain's Telefonica de Espana and [/INST] Italy's Societa Finanziaria Telefonica per Azioni SpA, control most big telephone companies south of the Panama Canal. </s> |
1,258 | <s>[INST] When the Latin companies were privatized, [/INST] these Europeans paid premium prices and left Sprint Corp. </s> |
1,259 | <s>[INST] , MCI Communications Inc. [/INST] and the Baby Bells in the dust. </s> |
1,260 | <s>[INST] The Japanese are getting [/INST] more serious about Latin America as well. </s> |
1,261 | <s>[INST] Roberto de Andraca, chairman of Chilean steelmaker CAP SA, says a [/INST] couple of years ago he had trouble coaxing Japanese businessmen to an annual Santiago conference involving the two countries. </s> |
1,262 | <s>[INST] Last month, about 100 Tokyo executives [/INST] flew in for business and were feted by President Eduardo Frei. </s> |
1,263 | <s>[INST] "We can't depend on the United States [/INST] to show leadership anymore," says Augusto Blacker Miller, a former Peruvian foreign minister. </s> |
1,264 | <s>[INST] Meanwhile, trade among Mercosur members has [/INST] more than doubled to $15.8 billion over the past three years. </s> |
1,265 | <s>[INST] As a result, it will be increasingly difficult [/INST] for the U.S. to form a hemisphere-wide free-trade area in the Nafta image. </s> |
1,266 | <s>[INST] For instance, the U.S. and Argentina have been [/INST] wrangling inconclusively for more than a year about safeguarding foreign holders of pharmaceutical patents. </s> |
1,267 | <s>[INST] U.S. drug companies reckon they lose [/INST] around $500 million in sales yearly to Argentinian pirating. </s> |
1,268 | <s>[INST] Tougher labor and environmental standards, which the Clinton administration [/INST] says would protect Americans from unfair competition, are favored by labor unions and environmentalists, two Democratic constituencies. </s> |
1,269 | <s>[INST] Left to their own devices, Latin [/INST] nations will include these standards "as a kind of gentleman's agreement. </s> |
1,270 | <s>[INST] They wouldn't necessarily be [/INST] enforceable," says Diana Tussie, an Argentine economist. </s> |
1,271 | <s>[INST] "We can influence events if we're in the lead," [/INST] says Jeffrey Garten, a former commerce undersecretary who now heads the Yale School of Management. </s> |
1,272 | <s>[INST] "But if we're not, we shouldn't make [/INST] the mistake of thinking that the Latin nations won't play another game". </s> |
1,273 | <s>[INST] A senior U.S. trade official insists the administration wants to [/INST] extend Nafta country by country, not negotiate a watered-down version with an expanded, cockier Mercosur led by Brazil. </s> |
1,274 | <s>[INST] All of this makes life difficult [/INST] for companies like Quaker, whose only factories are in the U.S. </s> |
1,275 | <s>[INST] It is different for big multinationals, says Robert Petterson, vice president for Latin [/INST] America at Caterpillar Inc. If Chile joins Mercosur, he says, Caterpillar would serve customers there by shifting production from U.S. plants to those in Brazil. </s> |
1,276 | <s>[INST] U.S. inaction on admitting Chile to Nafta [/INST] creates other complications for American companies, says Bruce Cowen, president of TRC Cos. </s> |
1,277 | <s>[INST] , which recently designed [/INST] a $16 million landfill project in Santiago. </s> |
1,278 | <s>[INST] "Talking to people in Chile, [/INST] they feel they've been snubbed," he says. </s> |
1,279 | <s>[INST] "They get the feeling that [/INST] maybe they're not so important to us". </s> |
1,280 | <s>[INST] For Latin Americans, the latest sign of American ambivalence is [/INST] the recent decision to delay a Nafta agreement allowing Mexican trucks to travel freely in U.S. border states. </s> |
1,281 | <s>[INST] But political pressure from California and Texas, rich [/INST] in electoral votes and crucial to Mr. Clinton's re-election, also played a role. </s> |
1,282 | <s>[INST] Mr. Liebenow worries that widespread disappointment, combined [/INST] with domestic pressures, will prompt some Latin nations to step backward. </s> |
1,283 | <s>[INST] Not so long ago, most Latin economies were surrounded [/INST] by high tariff walls, and the temptation to rebuild them is never far beneath the surface. </s> |
1,284 | <s>[INST] Last June, Brazil risked alienating [/INST] Argentina by unilaterally imposing quotas on car imports. </s> |
1,285 | <s>[INST] In Buenos Aires, Mr. Liebenow is told by Jose Mancuso, [/INST] a director of Divan Ltd., a furniture retailer, that two months ago Argentina quietly raised tariffs on certain textiles. </s> |
1,286 | <s>[INST] And Mr. Esrubilsky, the president of Etamine, adds [/INST] that hard economic times in Argentina are cooling the ardor for free trade. </s> |
1,287 | <s>[INST] "It's very nice to tell [/INST] someone that the future will be good," he says. </s> |
1,288 | <s>[INST] As he ends his trip, the [/INST] usually upbeat Mr. Liebenow is in a pensive mood. </s> |
1,289 | <s>[INST] He is disturbed by the lack of faith [/INST] in American leadership, as well as by increased competition from regional trade blocs. </s> |
1,290 | <s>[INST] Now he may delay plans for a distribution center in [/INST] Uruguay to warehouse stock for local delivery, a marketing tactic Quaker finds helpful in Mexico and the Netherlands. </s> |
1,291 | <s>[INST] "Before this trip, I was mainly concerned that [/INST] the U.S. was losing an opportunity" by not moving ahead swiftly with Chile, he says. </s> |
1,292 | <s>[INST] The environment will become increasingly more difficult as [/INST] Latin America develops the multitude of trading arrangements in which the U.S. isn't participating. </s> |
1,293 | <s>[INST] I'm coming to understand what a [/INST] potential mess we're going to have on our hands". </s> |
1,294 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 393 of 500 Review of global equity markets: 1995 year-end: Americas: After a [/INST] bad year, markets could pick up Author: Torres, Craig; de Santis, Solange Publication info: Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 02 Jan 1996: R10. </s> |
1,295 | <s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: In comparison with the 34% gains in [/INST] the US stock market, Canada's 12% stock market increase during 1995 seemed "disappointing" to many analysts. </s> |
1,296 | <s>[INST] In Latin America, 1995 was one of the most [/INST] disastrous years ever, with the Mexican peso devaluation triggering a stampede that traders dubbed "the tequila effect". </s> |
1,297 | <s>[INST] The performance of the Canadian, Mexican and Latin [/INST] American stock markets in 1995 is reviewed, and an outlook for 1996 is provided. </s> |
1,298 | <s>[INST] Full text: As U.S. investors [/INST] celebrated, the rest of the Americas mostly sulked. </s> |
1,299 | <s>[INST] In Canada, "disappointing" was the word that many analysts used to describe [/INST] the country's stock market performance in 1995 -- prices rose 12%, but that paled compared with the U.S. market's 34% gains. </s> |
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