Why the EU-Mercosur Deal Matters in a Fragmented World
The agreement can be much more than a market-access framework for both blocs. Can political will make it work?
SÃO PAULO — After more than two decades of negotiations, the EU–Mercosur trade agreement is set to enter provisional application on May 1. Its arrival is not a triumph of free trade, but rather as something more consequential: a test of whether Latin America and Europe can still anchor their economic relationship in rules and institutions at a time when the global economy is moving in the opposite direction. The timing is instructive. When talks began in 1999, the goal was straightforward trade liberalization. By 2019, when an agreement in principle was announced,...
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