Overview
On May 1, the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, more than 25 years in the making, will take effect on a provisional basis. The agreement between the European Union (EU)’s 27 member states and four members of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay – will create one of the largest free trade zones on the globe, covering more than 700 million citizens, as governments across Europe and South America seek to hedge against uncertain relationships with major powers.
While the EU is already the largest foreign investor in Mercosur and its second-largest trading partner in goods after China, EU firms still face significant trade barriers in the highly protected Mercosur markets. The goals of the agreement are to lower both tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, create predictability for investment through stronger regulatory practices, and promote shared values in areas such as sustainability and workers’ rights. EU exporters stand to save up to four billion euros per year when the deal takes effect, as Mercosur will eliminate duties on 91% of EU exports. The EU will phase out duties on 92% of Mercosur exports over a decade. The deal, however, will pose a threat to the competitiveness of US businesses in these regions, especially in the agricultural and automotive sectors.
A Lifeline for Mercosur
Mercosur was established in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with a customs union established in 1994, and Chile and Bolivia became associate members in 1996. Mercosur has continued to evolve in the 21st century, with Venezuela and Bolivia gaining full membership in 2012 and 2024, respectively. However, Bolivia joined too late to be included in the current trade deal, while Venezuela has been suspended since 2016 for failure to uphold democratic standards. Intra-regional trade quadrupled in the years following Mercosur’s founding when it portrayed itself as an emerging Latin American EU, but it has not evolved beyond a customs union or achieved full economic integration. Still, the four founding countries make up an area that would rank as the world’s sixth-largest economy outside the EU, with a GDP surpassing $3 trillion in 2025 according to IMF estimates.
Mercosur tariffs are high, with the Common External Tariff (CET) ranging from around 15% to 35%. Industrial goods like cars and agricultural products like wine and spirits face some of the highest duties under the pre-agreement conditions. On the other hand, Mercosur largely exports agricultural goods and critical minerals. The deal will expand access to the EU market for these exports, but an increase in EU imports will heighten competition for Mercosur’s domestic manufacturing industries, forcing them to increase efficiency.
The provisional implementation of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, first proposed in 1999, comes at a crucial moment for the South American members. Argentina’s self-described anarcho-capitalist President Javier Milei emerged as a vocal opponent of Mercosur, calling it “a prison” and claiming that it prevents members from leveraging their comparative advantages and export potential. At Davos in 2025, Milei said that he would even pull Argentina out of Mercosur if it were necessary for a trade deal with the US. Meanwhile, Uruguay had begun to explore the possibility of a trade deal with China. Mercosur has largely been held together by the leadership of Brazil, a founding member of BRICS, which seeks to play a stronger role in a multipolar world order by expanding market power as a key dimension to its global influence. Nonetheless, even Brazilian President Lula da Silva threatened to walk away from the deal in late 2025 after France, among other EU member states, continued to express opposition and create procedural delays. Despite this fracturing, once the deal does take effect, it will strengthen Mercosur’s credibility as a global partner and renew its strategic vision 35 years after its founding.
EU Overrides Legal Challenge
The deal is also a boon for the EU’s credibility as a strategic partner, with internal political challenges threatening the agreement. Just days after it was signed in Paraguay on January 17, 2026, the European Parliament voted to refer the deal for review in the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), delaying its implementation. Thousands of European farmers gathered in Strasbourg, France, to protest outside the European Parliament during the vote, concerned that a flood of imports of beef and other agricultural products would threaten their livelihoods. This roadblock came as world leaders were gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to confront the reshaping of the geopolitical world order. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a proponent of the agreement with Mercosur, used his speech to call for cooperation among “middle powers” in the new era of great power competition.
The legal challenge in the EU is centered on the agreement’s “rebalancing mechanism,” a clause that gives either party the ability to claim concessions if the other party implements regulations that reduce expected trade gains. This clause, requested by Mercosur Member States, could be used to challenge key EU environmental policies, including the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Opposition to the deal is particularly strong in Ireland, France, Poland, Hungary, and Austria, where farmers’ lobby groups have raised concerns over the deal’s quota allowing South American beef to enter the EU at reduced tariffs, threatening European producers. To address this opposition, EU member states negotiated additional measures to protect European farmers, including safeguards for sensitive agricultural products like beef, sugar, and poultry. The final agreement allows for an annual quota of 99,000 tons of Latin American beef to enter the EU each year at a reduced 7.5% tariff, and the safeguards mean that tariff preferences would be suspended in the case of serious injury to EU farmers (defined as an increase in import volume or a decrease in prices by more than 8% compared to the three-year average).
The agreement provides significant benefits for EU exporters in the Mercosur markets, especially in areas such as car parts, machinery, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, where EU companies currently face duties of 35%, 20%, 18%, and 14%, respectively. The agreement will also facilitate exporting through simpler customs procedures, allow EU firms to bid for public contracts on equal terms as Mercosur companies, and provide preferential access to some critical raw minerals. While the European Parliament’s challenge does not legally prevent the deal from being provisionally implemented, EU institutional norms call for parliamentary approval before such agreements take effect. Despite the legal review, on February 27, the European Commission announced that it would provisionally implement the deal from May 1. This has created political pressure against Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who faced (but survived) a no-confidence vote over the decision.
Critical Mineral Cooperation
EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maroš Šefčovič highlighted Mercosur’s critical mineral sector as an area with high growth potential. These minerals, such as lithium and nickel, are key components in batteries, clean energy, digitalization, and defense technologies. The trade agreement will help the EU fulfil the goals laid out in the Critical Raw Minerals Act, which seeks to ensure the EU has access to a sustainable source of critical materials to meet 2030 climate and digital targets, while diversifying supply so that no more than 65% comes from a single third country. Rare earth elements (REEs) also play a key role. In the EU, demand for REEs is expected to increase twelve-fold by 2030 and twenty-one-fold by 2050.
China currently dominates the production, refinement, and export of critical minerals. According to the Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025, China leads in refining 19 out of 20 key strategic minerals, with an average market share of 70%. For REEs, which are some of the least evenly distributed resources on earth, China accounted for 60% of global mining output in 2024. However, according to the US Geological Survey, Brazil has the second-largest reserve of REEs in the world, totaling 21 million tons, compared to China’s 44 million tons. Argentina and Paraguay also have notable deposits. The EU-Mercosur trade deal opens opportunities for South American countries to obtain capital investment in their undeveloped critical minerals sectors from Europe, as the EU seeks to diversify its sources of these minerals.
Implications for the US
The United States has drastically revised the post-1945 world order, with Europe and South America remaining largely demilitarized under the US security umbrella. Both regions face growing uncertainty amid the erosion of multilateralism. At the same time, China has increasingly expanded its economic influence in both Europe and South America, solidifying its economic footprint through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), extensive trade relationships, and its involvement in groups like BRICS. Amid this geopolitical landscape, states in both regions have hedged their bets against overdependence on China, with Brazil refraining from joining BRI and Italy withdrawing in 2023. An agreement between the two “middle power” continents creates additional resilience that emboldens both parties to jointly navigate emerging geopolitical risks. The political pillar of the EU-Mercosur agreement focuses on instruments for political dialogue and cooperation. For parties in both regions, upholding international norms, such as territorial integrity, is a key priority. The partnership will foster closer multilateral coordination on global challenges, including climate change, peacekeeping, and migration. Currently, only the trade pillar of the agreement is being provisionally implemented, while the political pillar awaits full ratification.
President Trump’s hardball tariff agenda, along with his efforts to demonstrate American military power in Latin America and Europe, may have proved a decisive factor in pushing the trade deal over the finish line. This will have negative effects for American businesses in both European and South American markets, where some US exports will become less competitive compared to other exports from within the EU-Mercosur free trade zone. Under the current administration, the US has secured just one trade agreement with a Mercosur country: Argentina. US businesses selling in EU-Mercosur markets will also have to rebrand some products to ensure compliance with the EU’s Geographical Indication (GI) requirements, which protect over 300 food and beverage names such as Champagne or Irish Whiskey. They will also face a comparative disadvantage when competing for public contracts. On a larger scale, this deal is an example of countries, in the words of Harvard economist Robert Lawrence, creating a world without America.
