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Mercosur expects to sign a trade deal with the EU by year end taking advantage of Trump's isolationism

Wednesday, March 15th 2017 - 06:38 UTC
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“The U.S. withdrawal from agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] and the Atlantic Alliance undoubtedly opens new opportunities for us,” Nunes said. “The U.S. withdrawal from agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] and the Atlantic Alliance undoubtedly opens new opportunities for us,” Nunes said.
A tour of seven Asian countries by Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi in September had “successfully sowed the seeds” for new Brazilian sales. A tour of seven Asian countries by Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi in September had “successfully sowed the seeds” for new Brazilian sales.
The four nations have identified 80 bureaucratic hurdles they plan to flatten so that goods can move across their borders as freely as people do today The four nations have identified 80 bureaucratic hurdles they plan to flatten so that goods can move across their borders as freely as people do today

Mercosur expects to sign a framework accord this year for a trade deal with the European Union as the U.S. shift to isolationism under President Donald Trump encourages it to look outside the hemisphere for opportunities, Brazil's foreign minister Aloysio Nunes said on Tuesday.

 Brazil and its neighbors in Mercosur, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, have sped up long-running negotiations with the European Union and expect to have a political pact by year-end. The controversial fifth member currently suspended from the block, Venezuela is considered to be out of the game completely.

“The U.S. withdrawal from agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] and the Atlantic Alliance undoubtedly opens new opportunities for us,” Nunes said.

Free trade talks that have dragged on for over a fifteen years decade between Mercosur and the EU have come alive and negotiators hope to make significant breakthroughs next week in Buenos Aires, the minister said.

“There is an intensification of our talks with the EU and we are moving into a decision-making phase,” Nunes said. “We will sign a wide political accord this year and later negotiate more delicate issues.”

Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse, is looking to place more food exports in the dynamic markets of Asia, where China has displaced the United States as the top Brazilian trading partner with its purchases of soybeans and iron ore.

“This is a new area of Brazilian diplomacy,” Nunes said, adding that a tour of seven Asian countries by Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi in September had “successfully sowed the seeds” for new Brazilian sales.

Nunes, who was appointed two weeks ago, promoted closer ties to the United States as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, but his initial response to the election of Trump last year was very negative.

“Trump is the Republican Party on a drunken binge. He represents the worst of his party, the most uncontrolled and inflamed side,” Nunes tweeted the day after the Nov. 8 vote. Since then, Nunes said Trump appears to have moderated his stance and softened his position on immigration in his recent speech to Congress.

“Our relations with the United States are good and we want them to continue improving,” Nunes said.

Brazilian President Michel Temer has spoken to Trump by telephone but there are no plans for a meeting, he said. Temer's instructions to Nunes were to deepen Brazil's integration with other parts of the world by first starting in its own neighborhood, Mercosur which is also plagued with hurdles.

“We need to turn Mercosur into a real free trade zone, which is what it was meant to be,” Nunes said.

The four nations have identified 80 bureaucratic hurdles they plan to flatten so that goods can move across their borders as freely as people do today, he said.

The next step is to draw Mercosur closer to the Pacific Alliance countries, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico, all of which have more open economies than Brazil and its partners.

Conservative governments took office in Brazil and Argentina last year ending the trade bloc's swing to populism and leading to the suspension of president Nicolas Maduro Venezuela because its chaotic government has failed to comply with Mercosur rules.

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  • David E.H. Smith

    GETTING TPP, et al, nations to PAY The COMPENSATION
    WHY would the Citizens of any Semi-Democratic Country Allow its Corporately Lobbied Government to Sign a Treaty that is so Obviously 'Strangled at
    Birth' with Litigation & its Gov't. Encourages Corporations to Punitively Punish the 'harmless' Citizens via Secret Tribunals?
    How Financially Ruinous are the Unapproved Morphing of Treaty/'Arrangements'
    to Taxpaying Voters?

    Young, Canadian PM TRUDEAU SWEARS that Corporate Canada's Lobbyists, Party President GAINEY & LIBERALs may not have Known about HORRORs of The Residential Schools & The WAD ACCORD's COMPENSATION, et al?
    ****
    TRUMP'S CORPORATE USA & MAY'S CORP. UK PROTECT TAXPAYERS from MASSIVE TREATY/'ARRANGEMENTS' LITIGATION COSTS & PENALTIES;
    WHO'S NEXT TO EXIT?

    The Basis for Investment Litigation (the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada-China Investment Treaty, CETA, et al); Suing the Global Corporate Economy.

    'The SHAREHOLDERS & Corporations of America, the Trans-Pacific nations, the EU, Canada, China, et al
    v.
    The 'harmless' Canadian NON-shareholders, et al, both; Native & non Native'.

    1) The most vulnerable Aboriginal Canadian community members (95% - 99% of Aboriginal Canadians) are being deprived of the due diligence information regarding the criteria for ascertaining the health & robustness of an Native Canadian community's economy.

    2) A psychologist agreed that there is a relationship between the DEPRIVATION of the aforementioned information
    and
    the unconscionably high rates of SUICIDES, etc. that are found in many of the Aboriginal communities across Canada.

    3) As a consequence of being deprived of the aforementioned info
    ******

    Mar 15th, 2017 - 09:06 pm 0
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