The term "Free" in the Free Trade Area of the Americas is a violation of truth in labeling. The misleading title suggests that FTAA proponents are advancing the agreement as a step toward eliminating obstacles to hemispheric trade and prosperity. In reality the so-called FTAA is a key step in a vast power grab. The agreement would empower a vast new hemispheric bureaucracy with authority over trade and many other matters. That authority would not be subject to the limitations provided in the American Constitution nor would the weight of that authority fall to bureaucrats sympathetic to the interests of relatively prosperous Americans.

Commenting about NAFTA, the FTAA�s predecessor, James Bovard of the CATO Institute warned, "With each passing month, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is acquiring more protectionist overtones." Bovard notes that the pact contains Byzantine "rules of origin" for products to qualify as North American products. He also points out the unlikelihood that this treaty, which is over 1,000 pages long, could represent anything resembling bona fide free trade: "Free trade is not complex -- it is protectionism that requires endless administrative gimmicks to camouflage its true nature. NAFTA amounts to a proliferation of new definitions of fair trade."

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