Imagine a ‘free trade’ area stretching from the Canadian Arctic to the lower tip of Argentina. Like other trade deals before it, the hemisphere-wide, 34-nation pact would be crafted by and for transnational corporations. It would allow the demands of international capital to override any national citizenry with the gall to enact inconvenient environmental and public-interest protections.
Such a thing existed. Or, at least, it almost did. It was called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA – ALCA in Spanish, see poster right), and, in the late 1990s, plans for it were ploughing forward. Then something got in the way.
