Uruguay has broken free from the Chavez orbit. It’s exiting Mercosur, the trade bloc that is a good idea in concept, but in reality not so good for a little state like Uruguay. It’s dominated by Brazil and Argentina, and while Brazil is never a problem, Argentina is. It’s also got Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in as a brand new associate member, something that makes the air pretty hard to breathe for civilized Uruguay. Chavez has stated that he intends to make Mercosur his vehicle for influencing events around the Americas.

Well, not on Uruguay’s dime.

Uruguay is a lovely little state that’s famous for its fine quality of life and its absence of corruption. It’s got lots of honest Basque-descended cattle farmers, but like most of the hemisphere, it’s mostly urban. Its president is socialist but he is clearly a democrat and he is apparently a smart pragmatic guy who isn’t interested in harming his nation through populism.

In shorthand, Uruguay’s sort of an Atlantic-coast version of Chile. Like Chile, it’s cursed with having to deal with Argentina’s always-odious government. This is something that’s growing intolerable as Argentina’s government-bankrolled piqueteros (professional protestors) block a paper mill from being constructed in Uruguay, and seek to keep Uruguay from selling its beef in world markets. That doesn’t leave Uruguay with much as far as Mercosur goes. Paraguay is equally disgusted and I bet they follow.

This is a very dramatic turn of events. One day after Bolivia goes bad, Uruguay said ‘Ya no mas.’ Big changes are shifting around in South America as this month of May gets under way.

Alek Boyd has the first scoop and a fine analysis here.