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The leftist leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia signed a trade agreement to counter a US-led drive to forge a Pan-American free trade area.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro hosted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales in a show of unity for the strongest critics of the United States in Latin America.

Castro, who leads the Americas' only one-party communist state, hailed his two allies, who call him "big brother."

"These new leaders have emerged and they make me the happiest man in the world," the 79-year-old leader said.

"Now, for the first time, there are three of us," he said.

Bolivia joined Cuba and Venezuela in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an initiative promoted by Castro and Chavez in an attempt to thwart US plans for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

"ALBA is moving forward, and facing the aggression of the imperial projects of the free trade agreement, all we can do is attack," Chavez said. Castro added: "The best defense is to counter-attack and this is what we have done."

The trio also signed a "People's Trade Treaty" in which oil-rich Venezuela will boost crude and gas exports to Bolivia.

Morales said the treaty will help Bolivia emerge from an economic crisis.

"Only in Cuba and Venezuela can we get unconditional support," he said.

Chavez, who has become a thorn in Washington's side since his 1998 election, praised what he described as Cuba's economic achievements under the leadership of Castro, his key regional ally.

"I have been visiting this country for 12 years," he said, "and in all those years, I have seen nothing but progress, growth and victories."

Venezuela now props up Cuba's fragile centrally planned economy with its oil supplies. Cuba suffered an economic collapse after the demise of the Eastern Bloc that used to subsidize it, and it is still in dire economic straits. Cuban workers earn the equivalent of about US$22 a month.

The mini-summit of leftist leaders has been eyed with some concern in the region, as members of the Andean Community that includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru fear their grouping could be dealt another blow if Bolivia decides to follow Venezuela's lead and pull out.

Venezuela officially pulled out of the Andean Community this past week in protest over its members signing bilateral free trade agreements with the United States that Caracas insists threaten the commercial interests of Latin American countries.

Bolivian Finance Minister Luis Arce has already warned that Bolivia will follow Venezuela's lead if Ecuador, Colombia and Peru continue to develop their free trade ties with the United States.

However, plans to pull out from the Andean Community worry Bolivian farmers, who fear the move could negatively affect vital soybean exports.

But Morales sought to assuage their concerns by saying he had received assurances that Cuba and Venezuela will buy all of Bolivia's soybean crop.

Talks about forming the FTAA began at a Pan-American summit in Miami in December 1994, with the parties committing themselves to wrap up their work by 2005.

But Chavez managed to rally opposition to the accord at the last summit on the issue, held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in January of last year.

The summit, attended by US President George W. Bush, ended in a fiasco for the US leader: No agreement on the FTAA was reached, although the parties pledged to meet again this year to resume lagging negotiations.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies April 30, 2006)