Presidents Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay, and Jair Bolsonaro, from Brazil.
To be sure, President Luis Lacalle Pou has deceived his neighbors. As Wednesday afternoon falls, and minutes before telling the press that his country would finally begin negotiating a free trade agreement with China, Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo, he told the Argentine ambassador, Alberto Iribarne, and the other diplomats of the region what they were about to say.
It was the Argentine representative in Montevideo who called President Alberto Fernández on one side and Santiago Cafiero on the other, to give them the announcement. The foreign minister has just returned from the G20 in Indonesia, and from Vietnam with other trade agreements in his sights and another focus for Mercosur, which is going through one of the most critical moments in his history. Lacalle Pou’s announcement comes a few days before the summit of Mercosur presidents, which is scheduled for the 21st of this month in Asunción and where Uruguayans will assume the pro tempore presidency of the bloc.
Alberto Fernández and Jair Bolsonaro had a half-hour conversation this Thursday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was the only time they were together like this, chatting, and it was informal. Fernandez is pro Lula
But as if that weren’t enough, Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, who is campaigning with a tough opponent for the October presidential election – Luis Inacio Lula da Silva – announced Thursday that he will not go to the bloc presidents’ summit on Thursday 21. Bolsonaro Va d agreement with Lacalle Pou and Mario Abdo Benitez but not with Fernández. “I said I’m not going there anymore. In politics, you can go back on some things. But my decision so far is not to go to Mercosur,” he said. CNN.
The Argentine executive has not yet made public comments as in the past by rejecting him, but the annoyance is there and for now it translates into silence.
On Wednesday, Lacalle Pou appeared at a press conference and claimed that his government had done so completed the feasibility studies of the FTA with Beijing and that the conclusion was “positive”. Now, the parties “will formally begin the negotiation of a free trade agreement”, he assured. Until this Thursday, China hadn’t officially said anything.
The blockade has not advanced into deals of any kind since 2019, partly due to Argentine resistance, due to Bolsonaro’s lack of leadership and regional interest. Also for the latent protectionism of Kirchnerism. This is where Lacalle Pou plays his card with free trade agreements that he cannot do without the consent of the bloc, or at least without breaking it.
The decision of a free trade agreement with China is controversial in Mercosur, especially for Argentina and Brazil, and has generated strong friction between Lacalle Pou and Fernández, who are now not fighting but not flowing. Fernández is just counting Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s hours to win the presidential election in Brazil in October, which is going like this but is never one hundred percent sure.
In the Argentine case, although Kirchnerism is a political partner and in every sense with the Chinese, they fear it – and businessmen have made it feel too – the omnipresent. Even the big Brazilian industry refuses a commercial opening to an avalanche of Chinese products.
China is Argentina’s second largest trading partner. But in exchange, the balance always recorded a growing deficit for the Argentine market. 139% in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period of 2019: or a red of 4,030 million dollars against a red of 1,683 million dollars.
Uruguayan willingness to sign an agreement with China is long-standing and included the center-left governments of the Broad Front, which also requested it and always met with resistance from Argentina and Brazil, and less so from Paraguay, which plays for a team. and more. Last year, after a clash at a virtual summit between Lacalle Pou – who said he didn’t want a commercial “corset” for the blockade, and Alberto F. – who told him that if he wanted to jump ship, Montevideo had announced the start of commercial negotiations with Beijing. It was September 2021. A regulation of the blockade of the year 2000 that any negotiations with third countries must have the endorsement of the rest of the partners (Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay).
Bustillo, who is a close friend of Alberto Fernández and has also faced legal charges here in the past from former Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman when he was ambassador here for the Broad Front in the midst of the small boat conflict on the Uruguay River, avoided the press. argentina.
This Thursday, however, the Argentine government said they were still betting on dialogue. and this is how they live it by transmitting it here to the ambassador of Lacalle Pou, Carlos Enciso.
“We belong to the Mercosur bloc, but we have insisted time and again that Uruguay must open up to the world and establish all kinds of agreements with different nations,” Lacalle Pou said Thursday, also reflecting the long unheard Eastern claim. . Uruguayans are eager to put their products into the world because they have almost no industries, but they have agricultural production to sell.
“Agreements mean prosperity, they mean opportunity, they mean work,” he added.
At the same time, he tried to separate the agreement from the political and human rights situation in China: “We are talking about trade, not about mutual political obligations.”
Natasha Niebieskikwiat
Source: Clarin
