The paper analysis the change of Chile's regional and international strategy of insertion through bilateral trade agreements in the beginning of the 90s, after a generalized trade opening since the middle of the 70s. The bilateral trade agreements strategy was set up by the democratic governments as part of the direction of maintaining and deepening the unilateral trade liberalization undertaken by the dictatorship, enlarging exports and diversifying products and markets. Exports have a decisive role in Chile's economy, open and small. The 24 bilateral trade agreements already signed with different countries and regions (besides others under negotiation) can be explained by the exhaustion of the unilateral tariff reduction, today in 6% for the majority of products, in trade creation. Nevertheless, the implementation of a large and diversified net of bilateral trade agreements also have political, strategic and security interests regarding the neighbors and near countries. This strategy also gives Chile the choice of not taking part in regional blocks to guarantee its interests, which increases its ability to deal with different and important partners in the international level.
Chile; Bilateral Trade Agreements; Regional Trade Agreements; Free Trade Agreements
