Uruguay negotiating bilateral U.S. trade deal outside Mercosur...?

i hope not but it would certainly fall in line with the bush administration's well-known willingness to sidestep existing institutions, international conventions, rule of law, or whatever else it perceives is obstructing its agenda...

Uruguay yesterday denied that it may be negotiating a free trade deal with the United States, after Argentina warned it that such an accord could only be discussed from within the Mercosur trade bloc and demanded clarification. Uruguay and Argentina are also locked in a separate diplomatic dispute over the construction of two pulp mills on the border between the two countries. Uruguayan Economy Minister Danilo Astori, in remarks published on Thursday by the weekly newspaper Búsqueda, said Uruguay was already holding informal talks with Washington on such an accord.

However, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Reinaldo Gargano said yesterday that "the Uruguayan government is not negotiating any free trade deal with the US." He even expressed doubts about the news report. "If the foreign minister (himself) and the president (Tabaré Vázquez) are not aware of it, then, the report may be false to some degree," he told Argentina’s radio La Isla. [italics added for emphasis]

neither country benefits from engaging in regional disputes... latin america desperately needs to find a way it can come together and maximize its considerable strengths rather than playing into the u.s. strategy of divide and conquer... you'd think they'd have learned by now...

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