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Bloc That Trade

By Alfie Ulloa Urrutia, Sebastián Marambio

The region's existing trade blocs have not produced productive integration. Why not bring them together?

The old vision of economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has failed. Over the past decades, LAC countries have concluded more than 60 bilateral trade agreements, as well as formed a number of powerful trade blocs. But the region’s social, political and economic advances have not produced the productive integration that would exploit the benefits associated with uniting over 600 million inhabitants in a territory larger than China and the United States combined.

Today, LAC remains no more than the sum of its parts.

All of the countries in the region...

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