legislators of USA they proposed that Uruguay joins the Umsca,the regional bloc that includes Mexico and Canada, but what is the balance of trade between the country and those nations?
If the “Law of the Americas”, presented at the beginning of the month by Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers of the Parliament United States, Uruguay would join the FTA(FTA) starting in 2026.
The Uruguayan exports without free zones towards the Usmca increased to 10.5% during 2023, compared to the 8.5% they represented in 2022, according to a study by the International Business Institute (INI) of the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU).
The survey highlighted that the beef It was a flagship product, with sales of $120.4 million last year, an increase of 137.2% year-on-year. Behind them were tallow (65.8 million), preserved meat (56.3 million), wood plywood (47.5 million and chilled or boneless beef (39.7 million). These 5 products represented 33.1% of the total.
Payment of tariffs
Regarding the payment of duty, The INI report reflected that towards Mexico They were reduced as a result of an agreement, so the greatest impact is seen in meat shipments to the other two countries.
For meat and edible offal, there is a quota of 20,000 tons towards USA and exported products are taxed at $44 per ton (an ad valorem tariff of 0.7%). If that amount is exceeded, it becomes 26.5%. In the case of Mexico, the first 250 tons are free of tariffs and, exceeding this quota, the applied tariff is 7%.
Imports
On the other hand, when analyzing the imports, those from the countries of the Usmca They represented 11.5% of total Uruguayan acquisitions in 2023, a decrease of 38.8% compared to 2022.
Among the five main products purchased, three of them correspond to mineral fuels and in all cases the common external tariff corresponds to 0%.
The largest amount of imports was crude oils from Petroleum, for 396 million dollars, followed by other similar oils (130.1 million), vehicles of a cylinder capacity greater than 1,500 cm3 and less than or equal to 3,000 cm3 (40.6 million), others medicines (31.6 million) and petroleum bitumen (21.8 million).
Source: Ambito
