On the eve of Thursday's Mercosur summit, Uruguay informed its partners that it will proceed with negotiations, expecting to reach trade agreements with third parties or blocks, outside of the four founding members group.
A top official from the Argentine Government spoke yet again against a bid from Brazil and Uruguay to make Mercosur more flexible and allow members to broker one-on-one deals with other countries or blocs.
Brazil should only begin free trade talks with Indonesia if it adopts recommendations made by a World Trade Organization panel in 2017 after a dispute over halal chicken, Brazil's meat lobby ABPA said in a letter sent to three government ministries.
President Jair Bolsonaro and Economy Minister Paulo Guedes want to strengthen trade relations with China. Guedes said the creation of a free trade area between the two countries is under negotiation.
A possible victory of opposition candidate Alberto Fernández in Argentina's presidential election on Sunday could put the Mercosur trade bloc at risk, Brazil's right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, said on Wednesday.
The UK and South Korea have signed an in principle free trade agreement (FTA) that seeks to maintain existing trade arrangements post-Brexit. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox signed the deal with his South Korean counterpart Yoo Myung-hee in Seoul.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday urged the world to do “everything humanly possible” to combat climate change and pledged to do her part. “Climate change poses a threat to our planet's natural resources,” Merkel said in her commencement address delivered at Harvard University in the United States. “It and the resulting crises are caused by humans.”
Mexico’s government said it had reached an agreement with Brazil on the free trade of light vehicles, subject to a 40% regional content requirement, paving the way for more open commerce between Latin America’s two biggest economies.
The existence of ‘inconveniences’ with Mercosur largest economies is delaying reaching a trade agreement with the European Union, according to Germany’s Ambassador before the government of Paraguay, Claude Robert Ellner.
Peru and the European Union will be signing the final documents for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in mid March, said Peruvian Trade and Tourism Minister Eduardo Ferreyros in Lima.