Mercosur views Uruguay-China agreement with skepticism

Uruguay has just announced the opening of negotiations with China for a bilateral free trade agreement without the other Mercosur countries, but the announcement did not cause skepticism in Brasília or Buenos Aires. Nobody seems to be concerned and the general consensus is that nothing concrete will come of it.

A flexibilization of the bloc’s rules to allow individual negotiations by its partners – a target of the Uruguayan leader Luis Lacalle Pou – continues on the table, but is still far from being agreed upon. Since 2002, Mercosur has only negotiated with foreign commercial partners together, as a bloc.

Even in the Brazilian government, the issue is subject to divergences. The economic team supports this flexibility and is convinced of the need to accelerate trade opening. If any of the neighbors do not feel comfortable closing and implementing new agreements, that’s fine – but let them free the others for a faster liberalization agenda, say assistants to Paulo Guedes.

At Itamaraty, vision is more moderate. The chancellery usually points out that individual agreements will only erode the bloc’s common import tariff (TEC); that the customs union is guaranteed by an international treaty (Protocol of Ouro Preto) and any change would require formal denunciation. Today, in practice, there is no major trading partner (United States, China, Japan, United Kingdom) pleading for negotiations with Mercosur or with Brazil alone.

Source: Valor Econômico

To read the full original article, visit the link:

https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2021/09/09/mercosul-ve-acordo-uruguai-china-com-ceticismo.ghtml

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