I'm John Batchel, was my colleague Professor Avanellis of the U.S. Army War

College, the New WorldS. Army War College.

The New World Report.

Mercosur.

What is Mercosar Professor?

Now that we get to say what it is, it's in front of us.

It's a great question, John. It's actually one of the most important free trade agreements, external trade packs,

that doesn't get much attention in the United States.

But it was set up,

right now, it's four players are nations of the, of South America, Paraguay, Uruguay, and of course,

the two big actors, Brazil and in Argentina. So Murakasur is, of course, together an enormous market. And So there's a common external tariff.

And so that's historically been dominated by Brazil.

But there was a very important negotiation between Mercosur and the European Union.

There was some fears by certain countries in Europe like France that the enormous productive

capability in agriculture of Brazil and secondarily Argentina could overwhelm and unfairly

compete against French farmers, for example.

And so there had been a lot of pushback about the fine points.

But an agreement after much difficulty was just achieved finally

in Brussels, and so this is historic, it opens up a much expanded trade relationship between

these South American countries and the European Union, which in some way could offset some of the

pressure that the U.S. is putting both on Mercosur

as well as on Europe with respect to tariffs. And at the same time, it also moves South America

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