Springs also submitted its candidacy in the early days but subsequently withdrew. Miami, Panama City and Puebla served successively an interim secretariat headquarters during the negotiation process. The last summit was held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November 2005, but no agreement on FTA was reached. Of the 39 countries present at the negotiations, 20 pledged to meet again in 2006 to resume negotiations, but no meeting took place. The failure of the Mar del Plata summit to establish a comprehensive FTA agenda augured poorly. Current status The FTAA missed the targeted deadline of 2005, which followed the stalling of useful negotiations of the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2005. Over the next few years, some governments, most notably the United States, not wanting to lose any chance of hemispheric trade expansion moved in the direction of establishing a series of bilateral trade deals. The leaders planned further discussions at the 6th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia in 2012, but these discussions did not take place. As of 2022, U.S. trade policy neglected Latin America in favor of competition with China after failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and resolving disputes with the European Union. Membership The following countries were planned to be part of the Free Trade Area of the Americas: Support and opposition A vocal critic of the FTAA was Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who has described it as an "annexation plan" and a "tool of imperialism" for the exploitation of Latin America. As a counterproposal to this initiative, Chávez promoted the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (Alianza Bolivariana para las Américas, ALBA) which emphasizes energy and infrastructure agreements. Evo Morales of Bolivia has referred to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, as "an agreement to legalize the colonization of the Americas". On the other hand, the then presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, have stated that they do not oppose the FTAA but they do demand that the agreement provide for the elimination of U.S. agriculture subsidies, the provision of effective access to foreign markets and further consideration towards the needs and sensibilities of its members. One of the most contentious issues of the treaty proposed by the United States is with concerns to patents and copyrights. Critics claim that if the measures proposed by the United States were implemented and applied this would reduce scientific