In his speech at the Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, President Bill Clinton said he was determined to make the United States part of the Free-Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). But Clinton still lacks the fast-track negotiating authority that he needs to hammer out an accord.

Fast-track authority would allow Congress to approve or reject-but not amend-trade deals proposed by the Clinton administration, and is considered vital if any real headway is to be made in creating what Chilean President Eduardo Frei called a "hemispheric community."

But if organized labor has its way, the president will not get fast track. The AFL-CIO is still fuming over the North American Free Trade Agreement, which it fought against in 1993.

The AFL-CIO envisions the FTAA as an even bigger enticement for U.S. businesses to head south of the border. And if Mexico isn't keeping its end of the bargain and workers' rights are being flagrantly ignored and NAFTA regulations don't stick, how will FTAA labor laws get enforced in places like Gualán, Guatemala, where, according to Eduardo Galeano, they once stopped fishing for fear of netting the bodies of political dissidents?

As Clinton ups the ante, so does the AFL-CIO. They have already spent millions of dollars on advertising designed to keep the "Buy American" slogan from being interpreted in its fullest sense, which would include the Americans up in Barrow, Alaska all the way down to the ones in Ushuaia, Argentina.

In this same vein, the members of the recently formed Made in USA Coalition would advocate taking up the needle and thread before buying anything with a "Made in the Americas" label on it.

With this kind of pressure on the home front, the odds are against the world's largest free-trade zone going into effect by 2005, a date established four years ago at the first Summit of the Americas in Miami, and just around the time when the United States is expected to become the second Hispanic country in the world.

If the FTAA goes up in smoke, it will not be from want of enthusiasm on the president's part. Clinton got so carried away in Santiago that he alluded to the all-time champion of hemispheric unity, Simon "El Liberador" Bolivar. Citing the so-called George Washington of South America seemed like a safe bet, as pandering often will. Even so, presidential speechwriters could have done worse-but not much. Perhaps only two personages in the entire pantheon of Latin American cultural icons would have rung as false: the Virgin of Guadalupe, who was once invoked by the artificers of the Mexican Revolution to whip up patriotic passions, and Ernesto "capitalismo, capitalismo, capitalismo" Guevara.

Back in 1815 Bolivar expressed his disappointment with his "northern brothers" and their dawdling over the Latin American question. In 1998 patience is again the operative word. Latter-day Latin American leaders, however, are forging ahead-with or without the United States. Indeed, in the wake of U.S. vacillation there have been inter-American accords like the Southern Cone Common Market, or Mercosur, as well as agreements with other countries. One of the countries quick on the uptake is Spain.

Spain is now using its comparative advantage over other countries-based on cultural, linguistic, and historical links-to bridge the gap between Latin America and Europe.

Traditionally, Spain has stressed its special relationship with Latin America, but back lashing is remembered far longer than backslapping. Although it will not erase the resentment caused by centuries of brutal colonial rule, educational exchange programs, official visits by Spanish King Juan Carlos and heir Prince Felipe, and UNESCO-organized initiatives do go a long way toward improving Ibero-American rapprochement.

Cultural ties between Spain and Latin American countries have been further strengthened since 1991, when the first Ibero-American summit was held in Mexico. It was precisely at one of these summits, in 1996, when Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar first announced the possibility of high-level trade talks between the European Union (EU) and Latin America.

Stagnation in FTAA negotiations also helped to clear the way for an EU-Latin America summit, the first of which is scheduled for Rio de Janeiro in early 1999. The most ambitious item on the agenda will be the creation of a European version of the FTAA: the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Zone. In the meantime, smaller trade missions are on the rise. A 40-member trade delegation from the port of Barcelona will be visiting Mercosur countries in October.

Among Spaniards there is increasing talk of a new wave of Latin-American-bound emigration. A new breed of conquistadors made up of bankers, entrepreneurs, and technicians is headed to the New World, and now they are captivating the natives with microprocessors instead of colored beads. Spain's leading television broadcast company, Television Española, transmits its signal practically everywhere. The Madrid-based telecommunications giant Telefonica heads the consortia that took over Brazil's state-owned telephone system, Telebras. Interestingly enough, it is the Spanish electronics firm Indra that will supply the voting machines and ballot-counting equipment for this year's elections in Venezuela.

But technology is not the only area in which Spanish companies are making inroads. The World Tourism Board has picked South America as the second growth area for the 1998-2007 period, and Spanish group Sol Melia, with its more than 50 hotels in 11 Latin American countries, is well poised to meet the demand. The biggest foreign investor in Cuba's tourism industry, Sol Melia currently operates eight hotels on the island and plans to open four more by the end of the year.

With life savings still being stuffed in mattresses in many Latin American households, banking is another sector with enormous growth potential. Spain's largest bank, Banco Santander, has quickly become the largest foreign bank in Latin America. It has over 30,000 employees in the western hemisphere and sees the day when it will earn more revenue from Latin America than it does from Spain.

As Cuba and Puerto Rico know all too well, cultural colonization can be worse than the real thing. There is nothing honorific about Americanization in these latitudes: if Canadians are miffed to be living in America's backyard, as it were, then Latin Americans are downright angry to be anywhere near Uncle Sam's premises, however well landscaped they may be.

Many of these countries see Europe as a counterweight to the cultural, economic, and political influence of the United States, and this is especially true with Mexico. In 1996 84% of Mexican exports went to the United States while just 3.7% went to EU countries.

An EU-Latin America trade agreement would signal Latin America's coming of age as an autonomous player on the international scene, and the possibility of such an extra-hemispheric pact has already provided Latin America with added leverage in FTAA negotiations.