MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (UPI)-President George Bush visited the Summit of the Americas which opened on Friday here and promptly thanked the thousands of enthusiastic greeters that met him throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails and vigorously waving banners.
"My, but they seem to like America," commented Bush as he ate some cake. "They obviously like free trade and US corporations!"
Some reporters described the summit as a battleground over so-called free trade, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and thousands of protesters vowing to bury a U.S.-led plan to create North and South America as one of the world's largest free trade zones.
Local media described the predatory intent of US corporations and the US government to destroy local markets, destroy social programs and create local slave labor mills and mass poverty to help give super-profits to US corporations while driving local countries like Argentina into insurmountable debt policed by the IMF.
Demonstrators flooded the streets hours before the summit started, shouting insults about the visiting American president and chanting such slogans as "Get out Bush!" and "Fascist Bush! You are the terrorist!"
But Bush was non-plussed. "I don't think they really said those naughty things," he commented to a reporter as they both dodged a flaming beer bottle which exploded behind him. "They really love us!" he insisted.
They watched as Chavez stood in front of a six-story banner of revolutionary Che Guevara to urge the crowd of more than 20,000 to help him block efforts to relaunch talks for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA.
"Only through a united Bolivarian front and revolution can we defeat imperialism and bring our people a better life," Chavez said. "Here, in Mar del Plata, FTAA will be buried!"
One of the region's strongest free trade advocates is Mexican President Vicente Fox, who is one of several leaders of the 34 nations participating in the summit who hope to sell out to US interests, while Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay remained utterly opposed.
Negotiators at the fourth Summit of the Americas have failed to agree on terms to relaunch trade talks for the proposed bloc stretching from Alaska to Argentina, an overly ambitious idea first raised in 1994 at the first Americas summit in Miami.
Such a trade bloc would rival the European Union as the world's largest, but it has been stalled for years amid squabbles about US farm subsidies and other obstacles.
The prospect of a rebirth for the FTAA drew mobs of protesters into the streets of the coastal resort Mar del Plata, as leaders like Bush ate cake and truffles, and drank champagne and Cabernet Sauvignon as they shuttled between luxury hotels in armored limos as security helicopters hovered above and military frogmen guarded the harbours in zodiacs.
Bush met with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner who complained about his IMF-enforced debt of over $100 billion and the financial meltdown of his country and its largest sovereign default in history.
Over 40% of Argentina's 36 million people remain in poverty due to trade liberalization which destroyed local industries and caused a flood of cheap imports. Now Bush seeks similar benefits to all other Latin and South American countries in an FTAA.
