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Bush To Face Challenges At Americas Summit
Topic Started: Nov 3 2005, 06:03 PM (333 Views)
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Bush to Face Challenges at Americas Summit

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 3, 2005
(AP)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/03/...D8DL6R9O0.shtml

(AP) President Bush faces ruffled relations in the Western Hemisphere with street protesters ranting against the U.S. in Argentina and Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez, waiting to bait him.

Bush, arriving late Thursday for a two-day summit, is trying to reverse the image many Latin Americans have of the United States as a powerhouse preoccupied with Iraq and terrorism and little interested in the social and political troubles in the region.

Creating jobs to combat poverty and strengthening democratic governments in Latin America is the focus of the fourth Summit of the Americas that opens Friday in this coastal resort with Bush and 31 other democratically elected leaders in the Western Hemisphere.

The meeting here and stops in Brazil and Panama, are not going to patch up problems Bush faces, but bilateral discussions with Latin American leaders might ease tensions. And Bush may be able to push modest initiatives that show good will to the region.

"This is an important opportunity to reaffirm U.S. commitment to the Americas, especially in the face of the widespread impression that the Bush administration's interest in and attention to the region has been on the foreign affairs back burner since 9-11," said Peter DeShazo, former deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs.

"It's unlikely that the documents produced at the summit are going to break any new ground in any kind of a dramatic way, or introduce new issues," DeShazo said.

"This is going to be a tough crowd, a skeptical crowd," said Michael Shifter, a Latin American expert at the Inter-American Dialogue research group in Washington. "With a few exceptions, he's not going to get a lot of warm abrazos (hugs) from the leaders."

Bush's trip comes as he faces the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency back home. U.S. military deaths in the war in Iraq, an unpopular conflict in Latin America, has surpassed the 2,000 mark; Vice President **** Cheney's chief of staff was charged with perjury and obstruction charges and Bush had to replace a Supreme Court nominee who withdrew after mounting criticism from members of the president's own party.

Bush wants to re-ignite talks stalled for years over the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas _ stretching from Alaska to Argentina _ that would overtake the European Union as the world's largest trade zone.

At the summit site, however, thousands of demonstrators began assembling to criticize Bush's trade push. And government officials were still bickering over whether the event's final declaration would include key language on when high-level FTAA negotiations might resume.

Bush himself acknowledged that the U.S.-led idea for a mega free-trade area reaching into every country in the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba, had stalled. Talks are at an impasse, and Brazil and the United States are at either ends of issues that include U.S. protections for U.S. farmers and Brazilian laws addressing

National Security Adviser Steve Hadley said the president's message is that it's time to convert commitment into concrete action and take the kinds of steps needed to enhance the well-being of the hemisphere where an estimated 220 million people are living in poverty. In Bush's view, this means fighting corruption, investing in education and health care and using free markets and private investment to enhance prosperity, Hadley said.

Chavez, an outspoken critic of Bush and friend of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has said he'll use the summit as a stage to denounce the United States as a "capitalist, imperialist model" of democracy that exploits the economies of developing nations.

Chavez, top Cuban officials and demonstrators at a separate "People's Summit" here, claim Bush wants to open up Latin America to more coprations that will end up enslaving already poor workers.

When the summit opens on Friday, Bush will meet with the leaders of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua _ nations that are part of the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement that Congress approved in July.

He is to meet one-on-one with Nestor Kirchner, the president of Argentina, and Ricardo Lagos, the president of Chile. He also has a group meeting with the leaders of the Andean nations of Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

____

Associated Press Writer Alan Clendenning contributed to this report.


MMV The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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