URUGUAY · TRADE

Mercosur has opened formal trade negotiations with Vietnam, and Uruguay is moving on a parallel track to get its beef into the Southeast Asian country of 100 million people before the year ends.

Hereford cattle on a Uruguayan farm. Beef is Uruguay’s flagship export, and Asia is the growth market. (Photo: Lux Valens, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

What Mercosur and Vietnam just started

The first in-person negotiating round between Mercosur and Vietnam took place this week. Argentina, which holds the bloc’s technical lead, hosted the working teams.

Argentina’s foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, announced the start publicly. He said he had the satisfaction of receiving the teams for the first face-to-face round.

The process was formally launched in late December. Mercosur, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, agreed with Vietnam to negotiate a preferential trade deal.

The goal is to cut tariffs and tackle non-tariff barriers on both sides. Any agreement must be compatible with World Trade Organization rules, the standard framework for global trade.

Why Uruguay cares more than most

For foreigners new to the region, Uruguay is a small country that punches far above its weight in food. Its 3.4 million people share the land with roughly 12 million cattle.

Beef is the country’s signature export, and about 80 percent of production is sold abroad. Every new market matters, and Asian markets pay the best prices.

Weeks before this round, an official Uruguayan mission travelled to Vietnam. Its main goal was to speed up the sanitary authorization of Uruguayan beef.

Sanitary authorization is the veterinary approval that lets a country sell meat at all. Without it, no tariff cut in the world helps, because the product simply cannot enter.

The government in Montevideo wants to close that process before the end of 2026. It then sees the bloc negotiation as the vehicle to improve tariff conditions later.

The two tracks, explained

This is the part that confuses many readers. Trade deals and market access run on separate clocks, and Uruguay is working both at once.

Track one is sanitary. Vietnam’s authorities inspect Uruguay’s slaughterhouses, disease controls and traceability systems before letting a single steak in.

Track two is commercial. The bloc negotiation will eventually decide how much tariff Vietnamese consumers pay on top of the beef’s price.

Uruguay’s strategy is to finish track one bilaterally and fast. Track two, slower by nature, can then follow through this channel.

How big is the Vietnam opportunity

Quirno offered a sense of scale from the Argentine side. Vietnam is already Argentina’s sixth-largest export destination.

Two-way trade runs at about US$4 billion a year. Argentina enjoyed a surplus of roughly US$1.4 billion in 2025.

Vietnam has around 100 million people and one of Asia’s fastest-growing middle classes. Meat consumption rises quickly when incomes do.

Uruguay already sells heavily into Asia, with China as its top beef buyer. A Vietnamese opening would diversify that concentration, a long-standing goal in Montevideo.

The Brazilian neighbour is watching too

A separate survey released this week added colour to Uruguay’s commercial moment. It found that 67 percent of Brazilians are interested in doing business with Uruguay.

The study, reported by El Observador in Montevideo, showed high Brazilian willingness to visit, invest in and buy products from Uruguay. More than half of respondents said they would even consider moving to Uruguay for work.

Brazil is Uruguay’s giant neighbour and a fellow member of the bloc. Strong Brazilian interest underlines the country’s reputation as a stable, easy place to do business.

That reputation is the same asset Uruguay is selling in Asia. Predictability, full traceability of every animal and grass-fed production are its calling cards.

What to watch from here

The first milestone is the Vietnamese sanitary decision. If approval lands before year-end, first shipments could follow quickly.

The second is the pace of the negotiating rounds. Preferential deals of this kind typically take years, not months.

The third is Uruguay’s parallel push in other Asian markets. The country has long sought wider access in Japan and South Korea, where it already holds niche approvals.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error