The irrelevance of Mercosur

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.

The reality is that Mercosur, a trade bloc that includes Paraguay, Uruguay and now Bolivia (formally admitted in Asunción) as well as Brazil, is no longer so important. Even the host, Santiago Peña of Paraguay, admitted that “Mercosur is clearly not going through its best moment.” Mr Milei has never formally met Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, whom he slags off as “corrupt” and a “communist” (Brazil’s supreme court quashed Lula’s conviction—and he is a socialist). But political incompatibilities go back further: Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former leader, and Alberto Fernández, Mr Milei’s Peronist predecessor, similarly shunned each other.