Mercosur-EU Mega-Deal Signed Without Brazil’s Lula Present

History rarely moves in straight lines. When the European Economic Community’s founding Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, France’s Prime Minister Mollet almost pulled out over farm protections—echoing today’s European farmers who again fear cheaper imports. Like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) abandoned by the U.S. in 2017 and resurrected as CPTPP in 2018, the Mercosur-EU accord shows regional blocs filling the vacuum left by a stalled WTO and the resurgence of tariff nationalism—this time driven by a second Trump presidency. Lula’s no-show hints at the centrifugal forces that have plagued Mercosur since its 1991 birth: leaders use the bloc for leverage but resist ceding spotlight or sovereignty. Over a 100-year arc, the deal matters less for its immediate tariff cuts than for testing whether large, cross-continental agreements can survive domestic pushback from both climate activists and protectionist lobbies. If ratification unravels—as the 1998 MAI or 2005 FTAA did—the moment will be a footnote; if it holds, it could mark the pivot from WTO-centric rules to sprawling plurilateral compacts that shape supply chains and climate clauses into the late 21st century.