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While still in office, President Bill Clinton emerged from a meeting with 33 Western Hemisphere leaders and made an ambitious pledge. By 2005, he promised, a ''Free Trade Area of the Americas would stretch from Alaska to Argentina'' and ''will be the world's largest market.'' He had the idea of combining all trading blocks and emerging as one huge western connection. The question now remains, should the new President strive to accomplish the goal of Clinton? …

…President, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, looking on. ''We have been the Three Amigos,'' Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada proclaimed. ''Now we will be the Four Amigos.'' Latin American and Caribbean countries will be looking, their leaders make clear, for evidence of American commitment to reviving the fast-track process. The United States would be making a huge mistake by not allowing Chile into the NAFTA block and eventually coinciding with its South American counterparts.