Failed Summit Casts Shadow On Global Trade Talks

In Blow to U.S., Chavez Taps Latin America's Discontent To Fight Opening of Markets

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina -- A failed summit of leaders of the Western Hemisphere dealt a blow to global trade liberalization and strengthened the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a critic of the U.S. who favors protectionism and old-style socialism.

The Bush administration had hoped to use the meeting of 34 heads of state to breathe new life into negotiations on a long-stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas, a free-trade zone reaching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Instead, the meeting was so wracked by division that diplomats drafting the final communiqu