Mercosur

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay signed the Treaty of Asunción on 26 March 1991 and are its states parties. Bolivia acceded on a protocol of 2015 that its own ratification law completed on 5 July 2024. Venezuela acceded in 2012 and has been suspended since 2016. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname take part as associated states without being parties to the treaty, and the grid below follows this catalogue's roster rather than the treaty's list.

The treaty set a common market for 31 December 1994, covering goods, services and factors of production. What took effect on 1 January 1995 was a common external tariff with lists of exceptions attached, and those lists have been renewed ever since. The market described in article 1 has never been completed.

Two separate measures. On 1 December 2016 the states parties suspended it for failing to incorporate the body of rules its accession protocol required within the time allowed. On 5 August 2017 they applied the Protocol of Ushuaia, whose article 5 allows suspension of the rights and obligations of membership where democratic institutions have broken down. The Uruguayan foreign ministry records the second measure under the protocol's article 5, and neither had been lifted as of 2 September 2026.

Article 20 of the treaty opens accession to members of the Latin American Integration Association and lets applications be considered once the treaty has been in force for five years, sooner for an applicant in no other subregional scheme. An accession protocol then has to be ratified by every state party and by the applicant, and the new member takes on the common external tariff and the accumulated decisions over a fixed term, four years in Bolivia's case.

Decision 32/00 of 29 June 2000 committed the states parties to negotiate jointly, and barred new preferential agreements from 30 June 2001 that the group had not negotiated. It binds the way every decision does, through incorporation into each national legal order. The interim trade agreement with the European Union, provisionally applied since 1 May 2026, was signed as a bloc.