At the recently concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meeting, US President George W. Bush called for the exploration into the creation of a trans-Pacific, region-wide Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific- - reportedly the largest free-trade agreement ever conceived.

The Bush administration had also signed in 2005 a US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Enhanced Partnership Agreement (EPA) whose main objectives are to increase security and political cooperation and enhance trade and investment flows as well as strengthening the investment climate in ASEAN to encourage US investment in the region.

But IBON research head Sonny Africa argues that such liberalization and integration efforts are less about strengthening ASEAN as an economic and political bloc than they are about allowing US transnational corporations the greatest freedom to locate their investments in terms of cheap labor and resources, access to markets and geography.

"A successful ASEAN-wide effort for deeper and linked implementation of 'free market' policies will then just mean a more intense race to the bottom for Southeast Asian countries where each client state will scramble to provide the most favorable conditions for imperialist superprofits from trade and investment," Africa said.

He added that these conditions include the most exploitative labor conditions, the greatest fiscal incentives, the most liberal investment regime, the least intrusive environmental policies, and the most liberalized social sectors and public utilities.

Africa further pointed out that the US-ASEAN EPA led to the signing of a US-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in September 2006 that lays the groundwork for an eventual US-ASEAN free trade agreement. Such an agreement could demand a level of liberalization even higher than that of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and thus, cement US economic control over Southeast Asian countries. (end)

IBON Foundation, Inc. is an independent development institution established in 1978 that provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.

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