With Argentina's president skipping Mercosur, the future of the trade alliance looks doubtful
The most notable thing about the annual Mercosur summit kicking off in Paraguay is an absence — that of Argentine President Javier Milei
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — The most notable thing about the Mercosur trade bloc's meetings on Sunday in Paraguay was an absence — that of Argentine President Javier Milei.
With the Argentine populist skipping the summit to star at a right-wing rally in Brazil, South America's biggest trade bloc — politically divided, notoriously slow-moving and beset by backsliding — faces an uncertain future. Milei has advocated for pulling Argentina, a leader of the alliance, out of the agreement altogether.
Overseeing preparations for the presidential summit kicking off Monday after initial meetings, President Santiago Peña of Paraguay — the bloc's rotating chair — set low expectations for what would be accomplished.
“I hope that this summit we are going to hold on Monday will be an opportunity to reflect, at a time when Mercosur is clearly not going through its best moment,” Peña told journalists from Paraguay's capital of Asunción, where 33 years ago the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay signed the revolutionary free-trade treaty that soon became Mercosur.
In 1991, as countries across Latin America were shaking off military dictatorships and opening up to free-market ideas, the formation of Mercosur, a customs union of once-estranged neighbors, signaled a regional breakthrough that sent capital surging across borders.
But over recent decades, experts say, protectionism and political volatility have scuppered high hopes. The bloc has put up more barriers than it has broken down. The group's common external tariff is riddled with exceptions. Outside South America, the bloc has struck
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