The president of a Miami, Florida-based multinational research and consulting firm, which specializes in Latin America, says negotiations over a free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (the trade bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), are a "real threat" to the U.S.

He believes that the EU is motivated to advance such an agreement because Mercosur represents a huge market for European exports of technology and services, among other items. And, re-exports of Mercosur produced goods to the EU will give the Europeans considerable advantage over the U.S.

For instance, "Volkswagen can build another plant in Brazil and assemble Passats there for re-export to the EU. This makes it easy to bring in more foreign direct investment from Europe; that is the real prize. In the past, the only reason for investing in Mercosur was to sell in those countries' markets. But they are volatile markets. Now, if you can re-export Mercosur production to the EU, you take a lot of the risk out of the revenue stream. Anchor investors such as VW will bring in first-tier suppliers, who will bring in the second-tier suppliers. This sets off a whole series of transactions and trade that favors the Europeans over Americans," he explains.