The irrelevance of Mercosur
Once the herald of a liberal future, the trade bloc’s members are increasingly at odds
![Paraguay's President Santiago Peña (C) speaks during the Mercosur summit.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240713_AMP501.jpg)
It was an especially pointed snub. Skipping the twice-yearly get-together of the presidents of Mercosur, Javier Milei, Argentina’s president since December, chose instead to speak to the hard right at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Brazil. “If Mercosur is so important, all presidents should be here,” huffed Luis Lacalle Pou, Uruguay’s centrist leader, at the summit in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Insults and irrelevance”
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