Agreement on draft FTAA treaty goes almost unnoticed.(Free Trade Area of the Americas may be rejected by the Bush administration because of labor and environmental provisions)(Brief Article)

WASHINGTON -- An effort to create the world's largest trading bloc took a major step in mid-January -- and virtually nobody noticed. Lost amid a flurry of 11th-hour activity before the end of the Clinton Administration, US Trade Representative (USTR) Charlene Barshevsky announced Jan.

19 that nine negotiating groups working on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) accord had agreed on an initial draft of the treaty. However the draft, hastily announced just hours before US President Bill Clinton stepped aside, includes at least two provisions that the new ...

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