French president, Emmanuel Macron, declared his opposition to the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur. In addition, 265 civil society organizations were also mobilized against the agreement. The decision follows the defeat of Macron in the municipal elections and the strong advance of the Greens.
Argentina and Brazil are monitoring the movement of a 15-square-kilometer locust swarm in Argentina’s northeast, though authorities and specialists said so far it had not caused significant damage to crops in the South American countries.
A few months ago, Foreign Minister Ernesto Talvi, at his rallies as a candidate for the presidency of Uruguay, did not hesitate to describe the Venezuelan government as a dictatorship. However, in an interview this Saturday he affirmed that he “won't say in this role” that the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is a dictatorship.
Argentina's industrial output crashed 33.5% in April from the same month last year, the government's statistics agency said on Thursday, as the national lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic bludgeoned Latin America's No. 3 economy.
Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Solá reaffirmed on Thursday the decision of president Alberto Fernandez's government to continue being part of Mercosur. When asked about links with the other member countries of the bloc, Solá said that a “rupture or union depends on the political will of the governments and our will is, that we are not on the rupture path”
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is considering imposing a halt on all travel coming from Latin America amid worsening coronavirus outbreaks in the region.
The world's largest operational hydroelectric dam, Itaipu Plant announced that starting next Monday, May 18, it will open its spillway to help Paraguay and Argentina, which are suffering from a drought and hence having problems transporting their grain harvest.
Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez has said the spread of coronavirus in Brazil threatens his country's success in containing the virus. Mr Benítez said more than half of Paraguay's 563 cases were people who had entered from neighbouring Brazil.
Foreign minister Felipe Sola said Argentina is “not abandoning Mercosur, and did not leave any chair at the table”. Furthermore, this Thursday a round of ministerial talks will be taking place, requested by Paraguay, to keep analyzing the legal and institutional framework that some members pretend to speed a list of negotiations with other countries.
Mercosur member Paraguay has a high likelihood of bouncing back best once the novel coronavirus is contained, Rebeca Grynspan, head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), told Radio Nacional del Paraguay on Thursday.