Brazil, the most powerful Latin American economy, doubts that the US will offer many concessions on market access for steel and agriculture, its two priorities. Also crucial will be whether the new administration can win fast-track negotiating authority from congress. Without this, which the Bush administration calls trade promotion authority, Washington's partners fear prospective deals may be rewritten by a Congress dominated by producer lobbies. Prospects for the global economy have darkened since the leaders made the Quebec date in their diaries. This week's decision by Alan Greenspan, the world's most powerful central banker, to cut interest rates, is an indication of how worried the authorities are.
Trade deals are often easier to clinch when the economic outlook becomes uncertain.
Negotiators' minds become concentrated on the dangers of a breakdown in trading relationships. But history shows that the opposite can also be true. This is the equivalent of Britain declaring that it wished to leave the EU and become a member of the European Free Trade Area instead. It would severely dent Mercosur's status as a customs union with a common external tariff. This weekend's gathering is supposed only to rubber stamp the declaration on the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreed by officials last week in Buenos Aires.