President Luis Lacalle Pou He is already in Uruguayan lands after his trip to USA which, surprisingly, ended up including a meeting with the president of that country, Joe Biden. For the Executive Power, the diplomatic tour “positions Uruguay internationally.”
According to the official presidential communication, the meeting – which took place in a few hours and after the excuse of the trip to NY by Lacalle Pou to receive an award from the Americas Society— “constitutes a milestone for the sake of a primary objective of the government: to improve the international insertion of the country”.
This occurs at a time when Uruguay is looking for new allies on the international stage while its great commercial commitment, China, cooled the negotiations for the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and subjected possible new advances to a joint agreement with the Mercosur.
Another setback could be the FTA with Türkiye, whose embassy recently expressed anger over a local bill that seeks to penalize deniers of the Armenian genocide — which the Turkish government, more than 100 years later, continues to fail to acknowledge.
In this context, the meeting with Biden constitutes a new opportunity for the Executive Power of continue promoting its policy —and the consequent discourse— of opening up, facing a very important political moment such as the presidential elections. Above all, while both leaders explored “ways to expand the economic relationship,” with the Alliance for Economic Prosperity in the Americas (APEP) —the space for the American development of the current US president— as a protagonist to channel more trade and investment towards Uruguay.
The almost impromptu meeting that became “a historic opportunity”
Regarding the possibilities that open up for Uruguay from the conversation between Lacalle Pou and Biden, the director of the Master in Integration and International Trade from the University of Montevideo, Jorge Fernández Reyesexplained to Radio Carve that “this is an event with a very important political content and that can have consequences in the commercial sphere.”
For the specialist, the meeting has a great political imprint “based on a presence or prominence of Uruguay in South America that the United States is looking at it as a kind of light from the democratic and republican aspects of the country. This, in turn, allows “ajar a door to be able to talk about business issues”; Among them, the tariff exemption for certain products that Uruguay exports to the North American country, but also the possibility of having another preferential access to that market with a greater number of products that today have a placement quota or, also, of other “products that today They are not participating for various reasons.”
“It is a historic opportunity that has a political foundation that allowed us to raise trade issues”maintained Fernández Reyes.
However, he also considered that “the possibility of a free trade agreement with the United States must be ruled out, it is more a utopia than anything else due to the situation of the United States and its position on FTAs.” Also, he recalled the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFAfor its acronym in English) signed during the last visit of the former president George Bush (son) to the country: “it was an alternative that was found from the point of view of a very close bilateral trade relationship,” explained the director of the Master’s in Integration and International Trade. “This is something new, something different: a totally different bilateral trade relationship than we have seen before. Here we have a certain expectation, we have a political foundation behind it, support from the president, and now we are going to have to take advantage of that opportunity”, he concluded.
Source: Ambito
