Miami, center of the world

Latin CEO: Executive Strategies for the Americas, August-Sept, 2002

Should Miami be the permanent home of the Secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas? There are at least a dozen good reasons that it should be, including the overarching argument that it is the historical and geographic center of the Western Hemisphere.

For all intents and purposes, the New World began in the Caribbean. That was where Columbus landed, and where the fusion between Europe and the Americas commenced.

Now, five centuries later, the two continents of that New World are about to join into a single, common market, and the 34 nations of that common market must decide where to place the headquarters of their proposed trading area.

It is the purpose of this document to argue that the City of Miami should be the natural and logical resting place for the permanent Secretariat of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas. That Miami is a Caribbean city--and the Athens of that archipelago--makes it all the more fitting. For not only is Miami situated in the geographic and historic center of North America and South America, it also manifests an almost-perfect blend of the Anglo and Latin cultures which evolved in the half millennium following Columbus' first footfall.

Just as crucial is the fact that Miami is the Western Hemisphere's gateway for trade, which has resulted in a cultural melting pot comparable to the great historic trading cities of the world, from Antwerp to Hong Kong. The City of Miami is more than 55 percent Latin; the Greater Miami area is about half Latin and half Anglo. Within Greater Miami's Latin and Caribbean communities are sizeable populations of Brazilians, Argentines, Venezuelans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Hondurans and Puerto Ricans, as well as a predominant Cuban community Virtually every nation in the Hemisphere has a representative population in Miami.

"Miami is the only truly Latin city in the US," says Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State who launched the campaign to locate the permanent FTAA Secretariat in Miami. "There is no other place in the world where there are ready-made neighborhoods of every type of community from Latin America and the Caribbean."

Because Miami is so centrally located in the Americas, it is also a favorite location for operations which serve the region. It is the ultimate Pan-Latin headquarters, for everything from the entertainment industry to the US Southern Command. Greater Miami is home to the greatest concentration of regional cable companies, regional law firms, regional media outlets and regional telecom companies anywhere in the Americas. It is also the preferred plat form for European and Asian companies which market the Americas, as evidenced in its large consular corps.

"Miami's geographic position, it's unsurpassed commercial aviation infrastructure, sophisticated communications infrastructure, multilingual work force, and excellent quality of life make it ideally positioned to serve as the 'The Brussels of the Western Hemisphere,"' says Florida Gay. Jeb Bush, whose Office of International Affairs is behind the state's effort to locate the FTAA Secretariat in Miami. "I firmly believe that Miami, with it's multi-cultural population hailing from every nation of the Americas and strong cultural ties to the Hemisphere, is the city that best reflects the dream of hemispheric integration."

The Natural Gateway

One glance at the map is enough to show why Miami is the natural gateway to the Americas. Directly south of Miami lie Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, with all the nations of Central America a few degrees to the west. To the east and south of Miami are the Bahamas and the rest of the Caribbean basin, as well as the entire South American continent. Indeed, located at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, Miami serves as a "springboard" for travel to the Caribbean, Central and South America.

Measuring distance by flying time, Miami is almost equidistant between New York City and Caracas, Venezuela--both less than three hours away Taking a global perspective, Miami is approximately the same distance--8 hours--from London, Madrid and other major European cities, and Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile. The bottom line: Miami is just one day's flying time from key business destinations on three continents, making it the location of choice for multinational companies doing business in Latin America.

"There are so many reasons why the FTAA permanent secretariat should be located in Miami that it's hard to know where to start," says Hugh Simon, Jr., Florida's Under Secretary of State for International Affairs. "But certainly the most obvious is geography We are the center of the Americas, and the airport here makes us the travel hub that links three continents--North America, South America and Europe."

Were that the only reason, however, then just about anywhere in the Caribbean would do. But upon that basic fact are built layers of other reasons, not the least of which has to do with communications, in terms of both technological and human links.