ECIPE Webinar: The Geopolitics of Trade – What Path for Mercosur?

The European Union and Mercosur – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – have finalised an association agreement, including a trade deal. When negotiators sealed the deal in June 2019, new trends were emerging but had not yet settled in. There was no global pandemic, Brexit has not materialised, and the Trump administration was unilaterally targeting allies with discriminatory tariffs. The WTO still had a functioning, albeit imperfect, dispute settlement system. The world of trade as we knew it has significantly tilted since.

This panel discussion aims to analyse the geopolitics of trade from a Mercosur perspective considering the spectacular changes we have experienced in the past two years. What impact has the change in administration in Washington has on Brazil’s relations with China? Is the Argentinian government still on board for implementing the agreement with the European Union? Are climate change and the environment bilateral EU-Mercosur issues, or are these themes becoming multilateral concerns to be tackled in the WTO? What impact would a failure to ratify the EU-Mercosur agreement have on the latter’s trade policy and (dis-)integration process?