Eduardo Sigal, expressed on a TV interview that “The FTAA is on a impasse, it’s in the freezer. On this moment there is no political decision to advance in Bush administration. It would be a miracle to get to 2005 because it is frozen”.

Celso Amorim, also stated on an interview to the Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora that “Honestly, I think it is going to be difficult the beginning of the FTAA in 2005. We are very time closer to US elections and that creates a problem.”

Amorim even affirmed that “nowadays, is more important for Brazil to advance in the negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO)”.

The Argentinean employee as the Brazilian Chancellor insisted on arguing that next US elections produce a delay in the trade negotiations at the FTAA and also at the World Trade Organization.

Anyway, Amorim admitted that the negotiations encounter will keep trying to achieve agreements: “there was and there is a big effort to advance, to look for solutions for the real problems, as the agriculture issue, that US revealed more restrictive but didn’t quite to some offensives objectives in areas that are sensitive for us”, affirmed Amorim.

Amorim rejected US posture about trying to take to the WTO those issues such as agriculture subsidies that are vital, but pressing the FTAA rounds on other issues such as Services, Investments or Governmental Procurements.

“We couldn’t discuss all the US sensitive issues in the WTO, and all our sensitive issues in the FTAA, where their pressure power was bigger. That can’t be like that”, affirmed Celso Amorim.