Lacalle Pou insists on Mercosur modernization, reiterates that Uruguay seeks FTAs with U.S. and China

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Tuesday (16), Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou stressed that it would be “a child’s dream” for the South American country to reach free trade agreements (FTAs) with both the United States and China and insisted on the need to “modernize” Mercosur.

“Uruguay is in the process of opening up to the world. If we manage to sign a free trade agreement with China and another with the United States, which today is not on the horizon because the United States does not intend to do so, it would be a child’s dream,” remarked the President.

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In any case, he acknowledged that “one cannot speak at random, and the United States is pursuing a more protectionist policy”, so that “today it seems unlikely” there will be any understanding of this type with Washington.

At a ceremony in Soriano, where he symbolically opened the wheat harvest stage, Lacalle Pou stressed that “if the world has shrunk and is more at hand than ever”, Uruguay “will go out to the world and will open up.”

“Because we have faith in our producers, in our people, and we will play in the first division anywhere if we manage to make agreements and sell our products. That is the commitment,” said the President.

On the current situation of the Mercosur bloc, Lacalle Pou recalled that there will be a summit on December 16 and 17 and said that Montevideo’s position “is clear and has been so for more than a year and a half, it has been stated in all forums and is maintained: it is clear that Mercosur has to be modernized.”

“The flexibilization to which we refer is more valid than ever. Uruguay has started a feasibility study together with China. This is the path we have decided to follow, and we will continue to follow it,” said the President, according to the newspaper El Observador.

He said that “the issue with China is going well.” He expressed his hope that “before the end of the year” the feasibility studies will be completed to advance in the possibility of a Free Trade Agreement, which he announced at the beginning of September.

The possibility of advancing in free trade agreements outside the block was a point of divergence in the last meetings within Mercosur, especially with Argentina, which maintains that this type of negotiation requires the consensus of all member countries, as established in the organizational norms of the block.