In the midst of Uruguay’s distancing from the other Member States, a new summit of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) begins this Monday, which will also be chaired by the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, who is at the same time head of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou, provoked the anger of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay by announcing that he is seeking the sole inclusion of Uruguay in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), an international project that seeks to lower trade barriers, establish common ownership frameworks intellectual property and establish arbitrations in matters of labor, environmental and other matters.
The current Member States of the TPP are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The United States was a member, but was withdrawn in 2017 by former President Donald Trump.
Due to these situations, the diplomatic representations of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay issued a joint statement on November 30 rejecting the negotiations carried out by the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry and advancing that they would consider carrying out the corresponding legal actions.
Alberto Fernández arrives in Uruguay as an attempt to emphasize that, for Argentina, MERCOSUR is a primary instance and an instrument for international insertion. For the Fernández-Fernández administration, the community block is a State policy, unlike Lacalle Pou, who has even expressed that, for his commercial ideals, it can become an obstacle.
As for the far-right Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, this would be his last summit, but he is not scheduled to come to Montevideo because he is in the process of leaving the government to hand it over to president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
