Brazil’s Lula Pressures South America Trade Bloc to Ink Trade Deal with China

“In conclusion, Uruguay has its dialogues with China, Brazil will surely deepen and initiate other paths, and we will get together and say: Uruguay has come this far, we are going to negotiate all together, or Brazil will say, this is what we can offer to Mercosur, and Uruguay agrees,” he added.

Lula’s advocacy on behalf of Beijing follows Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s address this week to the member states of the left-leaning Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). In the video speech to those assembled in Argentina, the Chinese dictator urged CELAC member states to embrace China’s predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project in which China offers predatory loans to poor countries.

“More and more countries in the region have engaged in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with China, supported and participated in the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and are working with China in building a China-LAC community with a shared future,” Xi stated.

Three of the four founding members of Mercosur have kept close ties with China. The sole exception is Paraguay, which maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In the case of Argentina, the South American nation joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative in February 2022. China recently granted a $5 billion currency swap extension to Argentina in November to help ease its severe shortage of foreign reserves.

In a joint press conference on Monday featuring Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa and his Brazilian peer, Fernando Haddad, at CELAC, Massa referred to Uruguay — the smallest country in Mercosur — as one of the bloc’s “younger brothers” and, as such, assured that “Brazil and Argentina have the responsibility of taking care of it, like every younger brother.”