Without further ado please join me in welcoming carla hill and the speakers to the panel. applause again thank, you thank you. Big well im going to encourage you to take your seats and to join the conversation here, we heard and a prior Panel Questions about trade and not so many answers so we brought together a stellar panel that really represents a broad segment a of the western hemisphere and you could not find greater talent, so it is my great honor to introduce the panelists who will talk to you about rethinking our trade agenda and the, in the americas and its a challenging topic, we live in and certain times, not only in the western hemisphere but globally. But what we do in the western hemisphere can set an example and let me just tell you a sentence or two about each of our panelists. Sitting to my left is secretary mrsa birch or, who was appointed last october, the argentine as, secretary of International Trade in the ministry of production and labor, her assignment as described by her ministry is to implement a strategies to insert argentina into Global Production chains, to promote investment, to open new markets for argentinas projects and to simplify trade procedures. Formally she served as argentinas secretary, to the industrial markets for the agriculture ministry, she also worked for the ministry of foreign affairs, the city of wetness areas as general director of Economic Development and the private sector for the ses group. And she has taught courses and Foreign Trade and International Economics at universities in argentina. She holds degrees in International Commerce and a post graduate degree in International Marketing and Foreign Trade. Sitting to her left is minister about gonzalez who has served as the resident fellow for International Economics since last october when she stepped down as senior director of the world banks global practice on trade and competitiveness. Previously she served as costa ricas minister of trade, in that role she negotiated six Free Trade Agreements, including the Central American republic fta, known as the kafka and shes also served as director in charge of its Agricultural Division she has been the minister of Foreign Trade among many roles minister gonzales is part of trade and law at the university of costa rica and has published extensively, she holds a masters degree in International Trade from georgetown university, sitting to her left is doctor pereira who serves as the principal economic adviser of the integration and trade section at the American Development bank in earlier he worked at the Research Department in the Development Bank of residual and taught at the federal university of Rio De Janeiro in brazil. The doctor has written extensively on the field of economics and trade including really well regarded works to explore and domestic transport costs and latin america, shaking the future of asia and latin american relations, india, latin america is next big thing . Question mark and i report on the impact of transport costs of latin america trade, and he received his ph. D. In economics from the university of college in london, last but certainly not least ambassador Martha Garcia who in january became the first woman to serve as mexicos ambassador to the United States. Previously she served as mexicos ambassador to denmark, turkey, georgia, aszerbaijan. She has held a number of positions including technical secretary for the eu latin America Caribbean summit, as advisor under secretary for africa, asia pacific, europe and the United Nations and head of the department of Migrant Workers and others. She has also combined her Government Service with teaching about International Trade. Shes a Founding Member of an ngo that promotes education for peace and disarmament. And she holds a bachelors degree in communications, science and philosophy and masters degrees in political philosophy and international studies. So you couldnt find four more able persons to talk about how we rethink the trade agenda in the americas. And ive been around a long time and i recall the first summit of the americas that was held in 1994 and attended by leaders from 34 nations, which resulted in a declaration whereby those 34 members agreed to create a free trade zone for the americas. Now, last year the most recent summit, it was the eighth summit. It was held in peru and there was a declaration there, but there was no mention of trade. So my question to the panelists is Free Trade Agreement for the americas a concept that no longer exists . Are there things we could do to rejuvenate our enthusiasm for trade in the western hemisphere . Translator i think there is a willingness to do so, but at i think there is a willingness to do so, but at this point given the inequalities in production and competitiveness, this time of agreement, we would have to rethink it. It is a major challenge. Id like to talk to the free trade area of the americas among others, because i was involved in the negotiation for some ten years or so certainly under your leadership as well. I say that the ftaa is an agreement in the waiting. Its an agreement in the waiting, i think, because it has huge potential. Ill refer a little bit to it. Its an agreement in the waiting because weve been waiting for it for a long time and also because i think we will need to continue waiting for it for some time as well. The first point, if you look at our region in the western hemisphere, an agreement like this would bring together about 950 billion people with a combined gdp of 30 something trillion u. S. Dollars. This would make it the largest fta in the world. To put it in context, if the u. S. Would go back to the new tpp, it would be more or less equivalent. So this would be a very big deal, could promote trade and investment in the region, could be a laboratory for innovation in trade disciplines. So i think it could be potentially very powerful. Now, as i said, weve been waiting for it for a long time, but i think it has not been in vain in the sense that countries in the region have entered into about 100 preferential trade agreements with countries in and also outside the region. So this would give us a good basis from which to build and bring greater conversions of all these different agreements that are already in place in latin america. But the third point why this is an agreement in waiting is that unfortunately i think we will need to wait a bit longer. I was recalling now that i see him here victor rico, he was a vice minister of bolivia at the time and he also participated in those negotiations. Now, why i say we need to wait for it a bit longer is in the face of an erratic trade policy on the part of the United States, it is very unlikely there would be interest on the part of latin american countries. I always like to cite a friend of mine, a trade minister from a country in the americas, i asked what is your countrys trade policy visavis the u. S. At this moment . And this former colleague of mine told me, well, i can basically sum it under one overarching principle, which is strategic hiding. And i think for us now its more about strategic waiting, waiting until the right moment comes. But i think we should make no mistake that when the opportunity comes about, we would need to jump on it because i do think that it would be a very valuable initiative for this hemisphere. Dr. Mosquito. Professor, please. Can you tell me when the right moment will come . Unfortunately, i think i dont have qualities for divining the future. But what i can tell you in building up on what annabel has said, i think even if it is not the right moment now to think about a free trade area of the americas, progress has been made in the latest years. We have an example in the Pacific Alliance, for example, how this has become a newly and deep integrated region of mexico, colombia, peru, colliehile and maybe ecuador, costa rica, panama in the future and even soninlaw some countries outside the region. What we have been doing in the Pacific Alliance in the latest careers is to really build a constructive agenda and to identify the sectors in which we can have this deep integration. What we are having is, as annabel said, a lot of new Free Trade Agreements that have been signed either bilateral or regional. What we have to aim at is the convergence of these agreements. Then it will be easier if we deem politically viable to go into the free trade on the negotiation of the free trade area of the americas. It will be much easier if these all network of treaties are already converging. I would say that at the same time beside this network of bilateral and regional trade agreements in which Pacific Alliance is a great example for us and also the work that mexico has been doing with costa rica and with the northern triangle, i would like to emphasize, for example, that the aim of the new government of mexicos objective in our relationship with Central America is that the Central America region can work more closely from the economic point of view with the south and Southeast Region of mexico. One of the consequences or results of nafta was the very deep integration of the Central States of america and the northern states of mexico to the north American Economy but not the south and southeast. What we are conceiving is a political designing which the south and southeast part of mexico can be a whole integrated economic region with the northern triangle first and the first of Central America. If we can progress on that, if we can complement our economies as we are trying to do now and if we can advance in the different sectors of economic competitiveness, on transparency, on infrastructure, even on an integrated market on energy that we have been working with idb, which can have a Transformative Impact in the economies of the south and southeast of mexico and Central America, then i think in due time the Economic Situation will be mature enough to go into the free trade area of the americas. But we also need a more stronger position of the Central American economies, the south of mexico and others. Because if the economies are not better and not only growing economically but also tackling the very big challenge of inequality, because even with a High Economic growth in certain countries there has not been a reduction of inequality, then the conditions to start renegotiating the free trade area of the americas would be a little bit more difficult. If we manage to advance in all these regional and Bilateral Agreements and also on tackling these very big challenges, economic growth, economic inequality in general, competitiveness, complementarity of energy markets, integration of energy markets. Its not possible that energy is more cheaper in honduras or el salvador. This will never help the development of the Central America american countries. We need to work on that to be strong toreer to go into the negotiation for the whole region. Its already been said here. Ironically the only big stumbling block these days for Something Like that is the u. S. Because we really dont know what kind of trade policy the u. S. Is pursuing, what kind of commitment, all the volatility of it. When you think of Something Like that and we have been doing work on that, we can think of the region. We have big homework to do, sort of a low hanging fruit. As annabel has said before, just in the region we have 33 Free Trade Agreements that cover 90 of the trade. In other words, 90 of the trade is already free trade. So theres a big opportunity there to try to go towards convergence of those agreements to allow imports from colombia and export to argentina, this whole compilation of imports. All these small steps can be done without too big of a political effort or technical effort. But theres also a big gap in the region, which is something hard to understand. I think its the big paradox. The three biggest economies in the region dont have a trade agreement. Brazil, mexico, argentina, which are 70 of the gdp. They account for less than 10 of the interregional trade. And why . They have partial agreements. If you cant do that at home, its hard to think of going abroad and think of something even more ambitious. The good news is theres some good moves in that direction. You know, brazil for instance just recently accepted after, you know, going back several times in the last decades, accepted free trade in a very sensitive area. Argentina also was signaling in the way of increasing its small trade agreement with mexico. If this big three really decide to move towards convergency and filling those gaps, its not nafta but its something that you shouldnt leave on the table. When you look at the recent history, i think the governments in the region sort of grew very disillusioned with the efforts. And clearly didnt give enough support for the wto for instance to move forward for the negotiations. And that the fact is if the International Multilateral system falls apart, if you dont have this rule of law and we fall into something very similar to what we had where countries end up in spheres of influence where prevails the rule of power, not the rule of law, i think were going to be in a very difficult situation, which is not in the interest of anybody. So i would put as the highest priority, the governments in the region should do all they can, light candles at the door of the wto to make sure this thing keeps going, you know, that trade remains something that is governed by rule of law. Otherwise, you know, were going to be in very deep trouble. What i hear is all of you believe that it would be in the interest of your respective countries and the region were we to move forward to liberalize trade throughout the western hemisphere. And all of you, your countries, are members of the Pacific Alliance alliance. How do you see those groups helping, or do you see those two groups as working together to move the trade agenda in the americas forward after this 25year gap . I think i can start with the Pacific Alliance. I have had a very good experience on the Pacific Alliance, for example, how we did the promotion and the presentation of the Pacific Alliance, for example, in the Nordic Companies or turkey, which by the way all the nordic countries and turkey have become observers of the Pacific Alliance showing great interest for this. When i meet with business here in the u. S. , the other day i was with walmart and we were talking about the supply to walmart. And i asked them, have you explored the facilityies that we have with the Pacific Alliance . And they just turned to me and said what . So it is not well known and i think we have that challenge. At least the business in the u. S. , there is very little knowledge by the companies of the opportunities that the Pacific Alliance offer. And we have very clear examples. One of them is berries. Mexico is a great supplier of berries to the u. S. In certain seasons of the year, but theres other seasons of the year in which we cannot supply the berries and peru does it, because of the different hemispheres. But the mexican businessmen are already partnering with the peruvians to be able to supply the market whole year long. And this is something that even some companies in the u. S. Does not realize that they have these opportunities. So i think we have a twoway challenge. On one side is how to really progress on this deep integration inside the Pacific Alliance, which i already mentioned, how do we work. A great advancement was done at the summit in 2018 in which there was a very specific action plan to go forward between the Pacific Alliance on the elimination of nontariff barriers, regulatory aspects, trade facilitation and small and Medium Enterprises, which is one of the key elements of the Pacific Alliance. We have to work on that. On the summit in 2019 in peru, there was not i couldnt get the report on the implementation of the action plan. But Pacific Alliance adopted a very important statement on the strengthening of the multilateral system, how to strength