Europe is focused on expanding its Union southward and eastward, although the WTO will actually assist this expansion because of the cost to the EU budget that this will entail. The darkest future would be a repeat of the 1930s and a world spiralling into defensive, even hostile, regional blocs. Watching the drive towards regionalism today it is hard to escape the conclusion that some of these initiatives are less about advancing regional economic efficiency and cooperation and more about staking out regional preferences, even regional spheres of influence, in a world of intense competition for markets, investment and technology. This race to see who can establish the greatest number of preferential areas the fastest is in turn forcing those left outside of the blocs to look to bilateral and regional arrangements of their own. Debate has already started in a number of Asian countries about the potential costs of being left out of a regional bloc.
Similar debates are no doubt being held in capitals around the world, including here.
Already Mercosur's horizons are expanding on a continental scale. You have concluded individual free-trade area agreements with Chile and Bolivia, and are negotiating a similar arrangement with the rest of the Andean Pact. Some have even suggested that Mercosur could serve as the cornerstone of an eventual South American Free Trade Agreement spanning the entire continent. If the goal is to widen trade liberalization and to advance a WTO-consistent agenda then the initiative is to be applauded. I have painted a bleak picture.