This article has been excerpted. 17 President Bush pledged today to intensify his efforts with Congress to win negotiating authority to build a free trade area from Alaska to Argentina just days before he travels to Canada for a summit meeting of leaders from the hemisphere. In a speech before the Organization of American States, the central forum for 34 governments of the Americas, Mr. Bush said striking down trade barriers was critical to sustaining democracy and generating wealth throughout the region. Democratic freedoms cannot flourish unless our hemisphere also builds a prosperity whose benefits are widely shared.
Open trade is an essential foundation for that prosperity and that possibility.
On Friday, Mr. Bush plans to join his colleagues from Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean in Quebec City. The politicians plan to commit themselves to meeting a January 2005 deadline to create what would be the world's largest free trade zone, encompassing 800 million people. Mr. Bush said that he was devising a strategy with congressional supporters to win the negotiating authority and that he had personally pressed his case with more than 100 lawmakers. On Monday, after meeting President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, Mr. Bush said that he would seek to conclude a free trade agreement with Chile by the end of the year. Lawmakers predicted that deal would go through regardless of whether Mr. Bush has the fast-track authority.