The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has recently changed his approach to the FTA that the government of Luis Lacalle Pou is negotiating with China, outside Mercosur and against the will of the rest of the parties.
“The Mercosur issue is always unstable, with its pros and cons. Right now Uruguay wants to buy everything that comes from China directly, regardless of the barrier clause. It is a problem that we are facing,” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said in an interview with the Brazilian radio station Radio Sarandí, from the town of the same name in Rio Grande do Sul.
Although the far-right president has a libertarian vision of politics in terms of trade and economics, and usually shakes off the consensus required by Mercosur, he has assured that his administration “will respect the agreements that have been made in the past.”
As published on Thursday by the weekly Search, diplomatic sources inside Mercosur said that more than a “problem” what has occurred with Uruguay is a kind of uncomfortable annoyance that can affect “the animus societatis (intention of collaboration between those associated with the same company) of Mercosur”.
They talked to the wrong person
The sources said that Bolsonaro’s change of position could be due to the fact that the Uruguayan executive chose to approach the wrong person, the economy minister of the neighboring country, the ultra-liberal Paulo Guedes.
“Minister Guedes was losing strength at this time. The political vision of integration that Brazil has in Itamaraty had a greater relative weight than the more liberal economic position of its Minister of Economy”, indicated the Mercosur sources consulted by the weekly.
“Uruguay prioritized a link with Guedes and then Brazil took another path. Guedes was weakened and Uruguay too”, they added from within Mercosur.
The media outlet also asserts that in the diplomatic environment it is beginning to be believed that China is not giving greater importance to the FTA with Uruguay, and the procedures are actually quite slow: the first pre-feasibility studies were expected in September 2021, but that did not happen and more than four months have passed since that limit month.
