Under the heavy guard of 5,451 police officials, foreign ministers from 34 countries in the Americas gathered in the South American capital city of Quito, Ecuador in October for the Seventh Ministerial Summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA, which is planned to go into affect on January 1, 2005, would link all of the Americas (except for Cuba) from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego in the world's largest “free trade” zone involving 800 million people.