Trade Agreements/Preferential Duty Programs

What is the Organization of American States (OAS)?

The Organization of American States (OAS) is the world's oldest regional organization, dating back to 1889. The OAS currently has 35 Member States and has granted Permanent Observer status to 37 States, as well as the European Union. OAS describes its basic purposes as follows: to strengthen the peace and security of the continent; to promote and consolidate representative democracy, with due respect for the principle of nonintervention to prevent possible causes of difficulties and to ensure the pacific settlement of disputes that may arise among the Member States; to provide for common action on the part of those States in the event of aggression; to seek the solution of political, juridical and economic problems that my arise among them; to promote, by cooperative action, their economic, social and cultural development, and to achieve an effective limitation of conventional weapons that will make it possible to devote the largest amount of resources to the economic and social development of the Member States.

In recent years, the OAS adopted a new agenda, which includes the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Americas, in which it hopes to progressively eliminate barriers to trade and investment.

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