Mercosur and the New Scramble for Latin America — Columbia Political Review

In January of this year, the European Union (EU) and the South American trading bloc Mercosur signed the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement, a long-awaited deal that will eliminate roughly 90% of tariffs between the two blocs and create a free trade area of more than 700 million people. The agreement concludes over 25 years of negotiations, repeatedly stalled by protectionist opposition in EU member states including France, Italy, Ireland, and Poland. Its timing is not incidental. It comes amid a turbulent period for global trade that is marked by US-imposed tariffs and renewed instability in the Middle East, where disruptions in…