Surprise and caution in the government before the alliance between Jair Bolsonaro and Luis Lacalle Pou

In the government they received with cautious although with surprise what happened in the last days in the region.

Luis Lacalle Pou made his first trip abroad as president on Wednesday. He went to Brasilia, met Jair Bolsonaro and both set a tentative date – at the end of March – for a meeting of the four founding members of Mercosur, which Bolsonaro said would be in Foz do Iguazú, after they had spoken of Puerto Iguazú. .

The meeting is also in the plans Alberto Fernández, because Argentina is preparing for March 26 a celebration of the 30 years of the customs union with the presence of the presidents of the States Parties.

But here he strongly attracted the attention that Bolsonaro and Lacalle Pou they will in unison and forcefully insist on their will to move forward and try to make the bloc more flexible at the next meeting. With this, they also want to move towards the gradual reduction of the common external tariff, which Argentina rejects. They want each country to be able to move forward in agreements with third countries, which has been discussed for years but has not materialized. They target the United States as well as China, depending on the country they are looking at. There is an administrative decision from the year 2000 that prevents this, so everything must be negotiated together.

Since 2019, in this part there are conflicts with Brazil on these issues. Bolsonaro even decided to make permanent this year a regulation whereby wheat imports from outside the bloc will benefit from zero tariffs in Brazil.

The Ambassador in Brasilia, Daniel Scioli protested. He met Bolsonaro and got a temporary guarantee that the Argentine stock they buy in Brazil is not damaged.

But Brazilians are angry at Argentina’s barriers to their imports. And they see unreliable policies in Argentina. Moreover, it was the heart of the conflicts that Fernández and Bolsonaro maintained throughout 2020, an ultra-right-hander who calls the Argentine government “leftist” and “pro-Chavista”.

“We have discussed with the president of Uruguay a possible meeting of the four presidents of Mercosur, possibly for the end of March” in Foz do Iguaçu, said Bolsonaro without details during his meeting with Lacalle Pou last Wednesday , adding that she had been approached. “The possibility of making business with other countries more flexible for each country”.

“We are going to celebrate the 30 years of this association, and like any association, you have to see it and watch it, and the next step is to make it more flexible so that each country, while being part, can move forward”, agreed Lacalle Pou.

At the start of Fernández’s administration, his liberal partners called it a breakthrough because refused to go ahead with Mercosur free trade agreements with Canada, South Korea, Lebanon and Singapore who had negotiated. Then they all spoke again, but on different scales. All conditioned by the economic and health blow of the coronavirus pandemic.

Another issue of great regional, political and economic importance, in which Bolsonaro and Lacalle Pou were also allies: the modernization of the waterway which crosses the countries of the bloc. Argentina is moving forward on its own plan, with more state intervention, at least at this point.

Meanwhile, Alberto Fernández is a dialogist, facing the triumph of Joe Biden and his inauguration as President of Mercosur. He went to Lacalle Pou in Colonia, made a state visit to Chile. This Friday, he met with the President of Emmanuel Macron and this week with the Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa. He says he wants to close the Mercosur-European Union FTA, but several Europeans are now against it.

In the meantime, the Argentine Foreign Ministry is planning a meeting of presidents on March 26, but in Buenos Aires, for the bloc’s 30 years and not to talk about flexibility. They are even excited to have a face-to-face celebration at CCK and showcase the so-called Mercosur Citizenship Status, a collection of regional regulations. Scioli obtained the yes to the presence of Bolsonaro during a regional meeting with Alberto F. And is preparing a virtual business forum with Minister Felipe Solá. But so far the encounter only has the face of Iguazu Falls. It is not known if the Argentinian side or the Brazilian side.