Free Trade Pact with U.S. is Unlikely, ASEAN Official Says

Free Trade Pact with U.S. is Unlikely, ASEAN Official Says

(International Herald Tribune)

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations probably will not reach a free trade agreement with the United States, Secretary General Ong Keng Yong said Monday in Singapore.
"I don't think we can have an FTA with the U.S.," Ong said in a speech at an American Chamber of Commerce lunch. "The U.S. is terribly distracted by other things, especially in the Middle East."

The United States signed a trade and investment framework agreement with Asean in August 2006 that was aimed at lifting economic ties with the region, and possibly leading to a free trade deal in the future.

"At some point, we could build toward an Asean-wide FTA," the U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab, said in an interview published Monday in the Singaporean newspaper Straits Times. "I do not think any of us has ruled that out. But at this stage of the game, it is premature talking about it."

U.S.-Asean ties are not at a low point, even though Washington's top representatives are skipping two major Asean-initiated events in the next few weeks, Ong said. Support from the United States, Asean's largest source of foreign direct investment, is crucial for the region's political stability, he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will not attend a security and foreign policy meeting with Asean in Manila next week, Ong said. He also confirmed that President George W. Bush would miss a meeting of the 10 Asean leaders in Singapore in September.

Bush had planned to stop over in Singapore en route to an Asia-Pacific Forum session in Australia. But the White House said last week that the meeting with Asean leaders would be rescheduled for "a future date."

Ong said a free trade agreement with China was on track to be completed in 2010, and officials were attempting to complete a chapter on investment this year that would create the world's largest free trade area.

Asean is planning to create its own free trade area, or AFTA, by 2010, with European Union-style economic integration - but not a single currency - by 2015.

Asean ministers will meet in Manila this week to try to agree on a legal and binding charter on their members' conduct, a document that also will call for the promotion of human rights and democracy.

Ong said Monday that the draft of the document was 90 per cent complete. It will not include a provision for sanctions on its members, he said.

Formed in 1967, Asean's members now are Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Asean's combined annual GDP is around $1 trillion.