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Despite the difficulties of the U.S. Congress to pass Free Trade Agreements (FTA) due to the November congressional elections, the Bush administration remains firm in its strategy to push them in Latin America.
The economic integration model imposed by these trade agreements is related to the U.S. policy that states that "free trade agreements serve the same objective as security agreements during the Cold War ... they maximize the opportunities for critical sectors and cornerstones of the U.S. economy such as technology, telecommunications, services, agriculture, and intellectual property." The trade law, or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) of 2002, considers that this form of economic relationship "will create new opportunities for the United States that permit it to conserve its economic, political, and military strength." After signing agreements with Mexico, Chile, Central America, and the Andean Community, the United States now seeks to divide Mercosur. The entry of Venezuela as a full member of the block - after its exit from the Andean Community of Nations because of disagreements over member countries' FTA negotiations with the United States - and the southern support for the candidacy of Venezuela for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, has led to the U.S. government's increased flexibility in ceding to the repeated demands of Uruguay to negotiate an FTA. The government of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front Coalition) in Uruguay has continued to promote the foreign policy of its predecessor, consisting of expanding trade relations outside Mercosur, mainly with the United States. The Mercosur initiative to create a customs agency, declared in the year 2000, established the responsibility among members to jointly negotiate all trade agreements with third parties that include tariff preferences. For Uruguay to sign an FTA with the United States, Mercosur would have to modify those rules, as did the Andean Community when it changed its common foreign policy. To sound out this possibility, Uruguay's and Brazil's presidents met recently in Porto Alegre. Tabaré Vásquez says that "Brazil approved Uruguay's negotiations with countries outside Mercosur," although also stating that it was asked that "no trade agreement damage the heart of the integration effort," referring to the shared external tariff. In effect, Lula da Silva agreed so that Uruguay could seek greater access to the U.S. market, but with the condition that it not break the customs agreement, which is defined by the shared external tariff. Practically speaking, this condition impedes the signing of an FTA with the United States. The Brazilian foreign minister considers that to be a full member of Mercosur it is necessary to form part of the customs union. Minister Amorim states that Uruguay's membership would be incompatible with the regional block if that country were to move ahead with an FTA with the United States. Along the same lines, although not as rigid, the Argentine Foreign Minister Taiana welcomed "whatever a country can do to better itself ... as long as it doesn't affect the regional institution." At the same time, the Paraguayan foreign minister declared that his country's priority is Mercosur, and discarded the possibility of a bilateral agreement with the United States as sought by Uruguay. President Tabaré Vázquez's problem is that he wants to sign an FTA with the United States and, at the same time, remain a full member of Mercosur. It is understood that the signing of a bilateral agreement with the United States or the European Union by countries that belong to a regional integration block weakens the process because it generates a trade deviation, creates holes in the customs union, and weakens the capacity for joint negotiations. Everything indicates that if Uruguay continues its negotiations it will have to give up its status as a full member of Mercosur. It would then become the first country on the Atlantic Coast of South America to join the path of international integration chosen by Chile, Peru, and Colombia. Ariela Ruiz Caro (ariela@independiente.com) is a Peruvian economist and international consultant and a regional trade analyst with the IRC Americas Program, online at www.americaspolicy.org. Translated from Uruguay entre el Mercosur y el TLC by Katie Kohlstedt.
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The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj).
Therefore why Brazil on its own right is negotiating bi lateral trade agreements directly with the USA as per the letter of intent signed with the USA just 4 months ago on June 8 and . for which there is an article on this site , and also with India and South Africa in the recent trip of Lula in India !!!
Does every Mercosul member has the same right or does Brazil has special rights not available to other Mercosul members ?
Here is an extract of the June 9 article of Brazzilmag :
Brazil/US Trade Agreement Seems Close at Hand
Written by Newsroom
Thursday, 08 June 2006
Brazil and the United States signed a letter of intent for the creation of mechanisms to promote bilateral trade and foster business dealings, including ethanol, but left aside more ambitious goals such as a full-fledged free trade agreement.
Gutierrez did not refer directly to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, a measure that has stalled largely because Brazil and the other members of Mercosur have rejected the terms initially proposed by Washington.
Is Brazil cheating again on the Mercosul agreement ????
ITt LOOKS LIKE THAT.....YES....OF COURSE.... AND AS USUAL....CHEATING ON SIGNED DEAL IS NORMAL FOR BRAZILIANS !