Mercosur

• 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.

• Saturday, May 23rd 2026 - 02:34 UTC

  Uruguay captures 63% of Mercosur's annual rice quota to the European Union

  

  Uruguay this week filled 63% of the annual zero-tariff rice quota granted by the European Union to Mercosur, in the first significant trade milestone since the provisional entry into force, on 1 May, of the association agreement between the two blocs. The total quota of 6,667 tons for the current year was covered within a few weeks of activity, according to Acting Foreign Minister Valeria Csukasi, in what amounts to one of the first operational tests of the treaty signed on 17 January in Asunción.

• Wednesday, May 20th 2026 - 23:38 UTC

  Argentina opens economic bids for Paraná-Paraguay waterway amid warnings of irregularities

  

  The government of Javier Milei proceeded on Tuesday to open the economic bids submitted by the two international consortia competing for the 25-year concession of the Paraná-Paraguay waterway, Argentina's main fluvial trade artery, despite a warning from the Public Prosecutor's Office about the existence of “serious and obvious irregularities” that could give rise to criminal and administrative consequences. The Peronist opposition has filed a bill in Congress demanding the immediate suspension of the process.