Gulf between Uruguay and other Mercosur members grows wider

Uruguay was conspicuously absent from a joint statement issued in the wake of the Mercosur heads of state summit held on 17 December. The trade bloc’s three other members – Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay – committed themselves to reaching an agreement on revising the customs union’s common external tariff (TEC). 

Brazil was the host of the latest Mercosur summit, one which was meant to be the trade bloc’s first in-person event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic but was moved online a week before, without official explanation. Officials cited concerns over the coronavirus Omicron variant, though there was speculation that President Jair Bolsonaro canceled the in-person meeting because he was peeved that his political rival, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had been invited to Buenos Aires by Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández. 

Speaking as Mercosur’s outgoing pro-tempore president on 17 December, President Bolsonaro expressed disappointment that a consensus had not been reached under Brazil’s leadership on reducing the TEC. “We are sorry that we have not been able to find an agreement on this issue during these six months,”...