Mercosur

• Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 09:58 UTC

  Mercosur backs Argentina days after Islanders' UN appeal for self-determination

  

  Within the span of a week, the two opposing positions in the Falklands dispute were laid out clearly in two separate arenas: South American governments' backing for Argentina's sovereignty claim, and the defense of self-determination that two representatives of the Islanders took to the United Nations. Neither pronouncement was a reply to the other, but together they illustrate the distance between two hard-to-reconcile logics.

• Wednesday, July 1st 2026 - 08:28 UTC

  Mercosur leaders push for a regional security architecture against organized crime

  

  The fight against transnational organized crime emerged as one of the central themes of Mercosur's 68th summit of heads of state, held on Tuesday in the Paraguayan city of Luque, where several leaders called for building a regional security “architecture” with concrete goals and deadlines. The issue ran through the addresses of the bloc's presidents and those of its associated states, at a summit where Paraguay handed over the pro tempore presidency to Uruguay.

• Wednesday, July 1st 2026 - 08:26 UTC

  Uruguay takes over the Mercosur presidency vowing to modernize and open the bloc

  

  Uruguay's President Yamandú Orsi on Tuesday assumed the pro tempore presidency of Mercosur and set as a priority of his term to “keep modernizing” the bloc and consolidate its trade opening, following the provisional entry into force of the agreement with the European Union. “We want a more modern, more dynamic Mercosur, more open to the world, but above all a Mercosur that produces concrete results for its citizens,” he said as he received the rotating presidency from host Santiago Peña of Paraguay, at the 68th summit of heads of state held in Luque.

• Tuesday, June 30th 2026 - 22:22 UTC

  Mercosur turns to Asia with Japan talks as the EU quota split stays unresolved

  

  Mercosur on Tuesday announced the start of trade negotiations with Japan and reaffirmed its intention to diversify alliances toward Asia during its biannual summit in Asunción, where Paraguay handed over the bloc's pro tempore presidency to Uruguay. The meeting, however, closed without an agreement on the internal distribution of export quotas under the treaty with the European Union, and again exposed the differences between Argentina and Brazil over the bloc's direction.

• Monday, June 29th 2026 - 08:24 UTC

  Milei brings open disputes with Brazil to a Mercosur summit focused on trade deals

  

  Argentine President Javier Milei will take part on Monday and Tuesday in the Mercosur summit of heads of state in Asunción, a meeting whose trade agenda —led by the agreement with the European Union— will coexist with open political tensions with Brazil that threaten to overshadow the bloc's progress. Paraguay's Foreign Minister, Rubén Ramírez, confirmed the presence of seven leaders, among them the presidents of Chile, José Antonio Kast, and Ecuador, Daniel Noboa.

• Thursday, June 25th 2026 - 22:13 UTC

  The EU deal's quota split will dominate the Mercosur summit as Uruguay takes the helm

  

  The internal distribution of export quotas under the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union will dominate much of the debate at the bloc's summit of heads of state, to be held on June 30 in Asunción, where Paraguay will hand over the six-month presidency to Uruguay. The meeting coincides with the 35th anniversary of the Treaty of Asunción, the bloc's founding charter.

• Wednesday, June 24th 2026 - 09:36 UTC

  “Evidence” on Iranian nuclear weapons is about as reliable as Trump himself

  

  By Gwynne Dyer - Tulsi Gabbard, the recently resigned, retired or fired U.S. Director of National Intelligence told Congress just two months ago that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons. Indeed, she said, experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons program.

• Friday, June 12th 2026 - 06:17 UTC

  Uruguay takes over the Mercosur presidency this month, with EU quotas a top priority

  

  Uruguay will assume the pro tempore presidency of Mercosur on June 30, during a summit of the bloc in Paraguay, with the distribution of the quotas from the agreement with the European Union (EU) among the main items on its agenda. Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin said the country is already preparing to take on that role and that “the technical teams are already working.”

• Tuesday, June 2nd 2026 - 23:06 UTC

  EU-Mercosur trade deal takes effect provisionally as legal challenge awaits ruling

  

  A month after the provisional entry into force of the trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur, exchanges have been governed since May 1 by the terms agreed upon, while political and legal attention in Brussels centers on the EU Court of Justice, which must rule on the validity of the mechanism chosen to launch the treaty.

• Friday, May 29th 2026 - 06:31 UTC

  Capricorn Bioceanic Corridor advances to final stretch to connect Atlantic with Pacific

  

  The Capricorn Bioceanic Corridor, one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects underway in South America, is moving through its final stretch on the border between Paraguay and Brazil, with just twenty-one metres remaining to complete the physical link of the so-called Bioceanic Bridge, according to Paraguayan government authorities cited in late May 2026. The structure, built over the Paraguay River, will connect the cities of Carmelo Peralta, in the department of Alto Paraguay, and Puerto Murtinho, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, and constitutes one of the central pieces of a logistics corridor that will link the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific across four South American countries.