Serie comercio Internacional Ser.

This paper examines the web of over 40 trade agreements that now exist in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. These agreements and their negotiation processes have generated centripetal and centrifugal forces that tend to unify and divide the regional integration process. While these agreements emerge as an opportunity for signatory countries, they also generate concerns in relation to such aspects as their consistency with multilateral commitments and the broadening and deepening of trade rules and disciplines beyond those being assumed in WTO.