Venezuela
Paraguay supports Venezuela’s bid for full membership of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), visiting Paraguayan Foreign Minister Ruben Ramirez said here Tuesday.
Mercosur with Venezuela included has “the potential of becoming a trade block of the whole of South America” said Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Ceslo Amorim who also insisted that keeping out of the Washington inspired Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA, “has been positive”.
Venezuela celebrated, as a triumph for countries of the developing South, Tuesday’s ruling in its favour by a British court in a legal dispute with US oil giant Exxon Mobil, which overturned an earlier court order to freeze around 12 billion dollars in Venezuelan assets.
President George W. Bush urged U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday to put aside differences over a free trade agreement with Colombia and approve the pact to show support for a strong U.S. ally at the center of a crisis in Latin America.
Bush is now presenting the FTA to Congress as the main US policy tool to halt the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
The Commission of the Constitution and Justice (CCJ) of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved the entrance of Venezuela to the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR).
The Brazilian Lower House Constitution and Justice Committee passed on Wednesday a motion for the long awaited incorporation of Venezuela to the South American trade block, Mercosur. However Venezuelan membership still faces a full debate in the House and must convince the Brazilian Senate.
The Bush administration has enlisted an unlikely ally in its international trade agenda: Hugo Chávez, the leftist president of Venezuela, who makes a practice of denouncing United States’ influence in Latin America.
Cuba and Venezuela signed a raft of economic accords on Monday aimed at furthering cooperation under the Bolivian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), including plans for nickel and oil development and a billion-dollar petrochemical complex in Cuba.
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela may return to the Andean Community, or CAN, because leftist leaders in Bolivia and Ecuador who have resisted free trade deals with the United States could help to transform the regional trade bloc.
US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte warned Tuesday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez would win and Latin American democracies would lose if the US Congress does not pass the Free Trade Agreements with Peru, Panama and "especially with Colombia."
Political and economic alliances with a view to strengthening Latin American integration are subtly shifting with a growing distance between Chávez and Lula
Above and beyond the political rhetoric in favour of South American integration, Mercosur and Venezuela have not eliminated their mutual suspicions, which are delaying Venezuela’s admission to the trade bloc as the fifth full member
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper departs upon his first official visit to Latin America this weekend, he will likely make a better impression than did Pierre Trudeau on his own visit to South America.
Iran plans to join a Latin American initiative designed to counter US-led efforts for free trade in the region, the official Web site of Iran’s president office reported on Sunday.
International Relations Commission members of the Cuban parliament received an update Monday on the progress of the agreements being implemented under the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which promotes social development, solidarity and mutually beneficial trade.
Brazil wants a "goodwill gesture" from Venezuela before its Congress votes it into the Mercosur trade bloc, but President Hugo Chavez’s government indicated Thursday it won’t be extending an olive branch any time soon.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has to enter the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) as a full member first, before starting to make reforms, as he has hinted he intends to do, said Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Amorim in an interview daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo published on Sunday.
Chavez warns CAN to reject a free-trade agreement with the European Union (EU) as unacceptable in the present circumstances. The Bolivian President has told Chavez that he agrees and cannot accept the free-trade agreement with the EU.
Charles Rangel, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, accused Thursday the government of US President George W. Bush of pressing the Congress to pass a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia in order to counter Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
