Uruguayan president Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou and his Argentine peer, Alberto Fernandez held a half-hour video conference Tuesday mid-morning to address the recent decision by the current Argentine administration to freeze Mercosur free trade negotiations with potential new partners and instead concentrate efforts in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and its sanitary, social, economic and employment consequences.
After the departure from Montevideo of the last medical flight with passengers of the stranded Antarctic cruise Greg Mortimer, the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, sent a letter to Uruguay’s President, Luis Lacalle Pou, acknowledging the action of his government for its collaboration with Australian citizens.
According to the estimates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Uruguayan economy will decrease by 3% this 2020. The “great closure” has been how the international body has defined, as the title of its World Economic Outlook, government measures against the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19.
Mercosur country members agreed on Wednesday to share information and statistics on the coronavirus evolution as part of a common strategy destined to combat the pandemic, which included facilitating the return of ex-pats and ensuring the movement of goods among the block.
By David P. Michaels (*) - Luis-Alberto Lacalle Pou, Uruguay’s recently inaugurated President, faces one of the most significant challenges in Uruguay’s recent history.
Uruguay confirmed its first four tested cases of coronavirus on Friday, the Ministry of Health announced in a tweet. All four cases were people who had arrived to Uruguay from Milan, Italy between March 3 and March 6, the ministry said, adding that the patients are stable and at their homes.
The Uruguayan government announced on Tuesday that it was withdrawing from the Union of South American Nations, Unasur and returning to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, TIAR.
Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou had his first contact with US President Donald Trump last Saturday, reported White House, special advisor, Judd Deere in a tweet.
Surrounded by security and stopped by some parishioners who asked for a photo, the new president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou and part of his cabinet walked this Monday in the middle aisle of Montevideo’s Cathedral, to an interfaith ceremony held to pray for the new government.
It was a March sunny Sunday in Montevideo, and for the solid democracy of Uruguay, business as usual. An outgoing center government was replaced by a center-right coalition that emerged victorious from the runoff last November. Despite fifteen years in office, three mandates, Luis Lacalle Pou, 46, is the new president for the next five years and for the first time with a woman vice president, notary Beatriz Argimón.