The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has traveled to Argentina in what is his first trip abroad since taking office on January 1, and has emphasized that among the main objectives of his visit is the «strengthening» of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur).
«Good evening from Buenos Aires. Tomorrow will be a day of intense work to resume the partnership between Brazil and Argentina. One of the main markets for Brazilian industrial products, third largest trading partner of Brazil,» said Lula da Silva through his account on the social network Twitter.
The president, who will also participate in the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), said that both countries «are going to resume ties». «Brazil is returning to the international scene and will act to strengthen Mercosur», he said.
In this sense, the Argentine Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, stressed that «the relationship between Argentina and Brazil is being reborn». «Lula’s arrival in the country, in his first official visit abroad as the new president, is a great boost for our bilateral relationship and highlights his commitment to strengthen Mercosur and CELAC», he said.
«Argentina began to design in September 2022 an Integration Agreement between the two countries, a deep and broad State policy that will be a concrete action plan between presidents, ministers and ministers,» Cafiero emphasized.
On Sunday, Argentina’s Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, told the Financial Times that both governments will soon announce preparations to launch a common currency project that could turn both countries, the two main South American economies, into the second largest monetary bloc in the world.
The initial intention is that this new currency – whose name, Brazil proposes, will be the South – will boost regional trade and reduce the impact of the dollar. In principle, both countries envisage a period of simultaneous trade with the Brazilian real and the Argentine peso.
Brazil and Argentina have been discussing a common currency for years, but talks have never come to fruition due to opposition from Brazil’s Central Bank. Under left-wing governments in both countries, experts believe, in relation to Lula and Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, there is greater political support for the project.
MEETING WITH MADURO In turn, it has been confirmed that Lula will hold a meeting with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who in the last four years had been relegated by Jair Bolsonaro in favor of the opposition Juan Guaidó, in relation to the situation of Caracas with respect to Mercosur, from which it was expelled in 2016.
«It’s something normal and that’s the way it should be. We are in favor of dialogue and we believe that isolation leads nowhere, it only generates frustrations,» defended President Lula’s special advisor for international affairs, Celso Amorim, as reported by the newspaper ‘O Globo’.
On the eve of Lula’s arrival in Buenos Aires, the head of the Secretariat of Communication, Paulo Pimenta, remarked that the new administration is fully prepared to resume the dialogue with Venezuela. «That ideological vision led by the previous government only brought prejudice to Brazil», he said.
The meeting will be the first one between the two as heads of state of their respective countries, after Maduro served first as foreign minister and then as president of the Venezuelan National Assembly during the Brazilian’s first term in office.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
