Opting Out?

President Nicanor Duarte Frutos recently expressed the desire to pursue FTAs with non-Mercosur countries, something which would explicitly violate the founding agreement of the trading bloc (the Treaty of Asunción, 1991). Duarte claimed that Paraguay was 'following Uruguay's position' over the need to be granted exceptions to the rules, presumably based on the recognition of 'asymmetries' between Mercosur's smaller members (Paraguay and Uruguay), and its larger members (Argentina and Brazil). Reinaldo Gargano, Uruguay's foreign minister, claimed that Uruguay had not asked for any such exception from Mercosur and did not have plans to do so.

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