The established order of things in international trade, the world we have been comfortable with for decades, has been shattered. This is often laid at Donald Trump’s door, given his disdain for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and relish for unilateral actions like tariff surcharges. In reality, the global trading system was in trouble before Trump’s arrival on the scene. He and Robert Lighthizer, his spear-carrier as U.S. Trade Representative, have just been the instruments of disruption, bringing all of the inadequacies and shortcomings of the WTO system to the forefront.

The United States was never truly fond of free trade agreements (FTAs). Since 1984, the U.S. has signed FTAs with only 20 countries, the most significant of which was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), recently replaced with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). In comparison, the European Union has the world’s largest network of preferential trade agreements, having such pacts in force with 77 countries.

The economists Iván Cachanosky and Eugenio Marí Thomsen will present their most recent work on the Mercosur-European Union free trade agreement reached on June 28 of last year. How will this alliance benefit Argentina? Will it be possible to achieve it in the short term?

Building international alliances is the only way if the US wants to modify China’s behavior either in the economic or geopolitical sphere. This paper examines the appropriateness of multilateral and plurilateral approaches to a geo-economic policy aimed at China’s current regime.