ABSTRACT
In 2005, in Mar del Plata, Argentina, under the attentive eyes of the leaders of all the countries of the American continent-except for Cuba-five presidents who had recently come to power said ‘no’ to the continuation of the negotiation for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Thus, Néstor Kirchner (Argentina), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay) and Duarte Frutos (Paraguay), standing for the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), together with Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), put a definitive end to what had become the dominant agenda within the Summit of the Americas Process since the first meeting in Miami in 1994. What until then seemed to be a strong consensus on free trade was thus broken. Still, something else broke for several countries in Latin America: the idea that free trade was a unique recipe, the only way for them to integrate regionally and internationally. Discrepancies among countries, until then rather obscure, became increasingly apparent. Hence, the year 2005 marked a crucial turning point for Latin American countries’ international strategies.
