The president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, denied this Friday (02.11.2022) that the negotiations with a view to a future Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between his country and China are blocked and also announced the possibility that his nation could integrate to the Transpacific Agreement.
“It is a great nonsense” to say that the negotiations are deadlocked, he told the press in the framework of an event attended by the president in Canelones (south) and after the magazine Busca published that there is “concern” in the Executive regarding the escalation of tension in Ukraine in case the situation between Russia, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) affects China.
In this context, Lacalle Pou said that the negotiation “is going ahead.” In addition, he commented that his government is “doing consultations” for a possible incorporation into the Trans-Pacific Agreement, which includes eleven countries, including Australia, Canada, Chile and Japan.
Lacalle Pou indicated that, for it to happen, “there must be an acceptance of all the members” and that there are “important internal issues to discuss”, although he did not specify which ones. “Uruguay, be it with China, with Turkey, be it with whoever it is, we are going to do everything possible to export Uruguayan work without tariffs,” she argued.
In this regard, Daniel Caggiani, a deputy for the Broad Front – a leftist coalition that governed Uruguay between 2005 and 2020 and is now in opposition – wrote a thread on Twitter in which he assured that he will request the appearance of Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo at the Parliament to “inform the public” about the progress of the negotiations with China. “The China FTA seems to be getting more and more into the big announcements of this Administration that have never come to fruition,” he wrote.
In September 2021, Lacalle Pou made public that Uruguay and China intended to advance in an agreement of these characteristics, despite the position of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) of not allowing countries to negotiate agreements outside the bloc.
“This government has expressed its intention to advance towards the world, to advance towards the world with all the MERCOSUR partners, but at the same time and it has been done explicitly, if it was not possible to advance together, Uruguay was going to try to do so” , the Uruguayan president said at that time. China is the main market for the South American country’s exports.
loves (efe, the daily, the observer, channel 5)