With Argentina's president skipping Mercosur, the future of the trade alliance looks doubtful

The most notable thing about the annual Mercosur summit kicking off in Paraguay is an absence — that of Argentine President Javier Milei. He became the first Argentine leader to skip the annual summit since his country’s 2001 financial catastrophe. With the Argentine populist starring at a right-wing rally in Brazil, the Mercosur presidential meeting Monday promised to be much quieter. But South America’s biggest trade bloc, politically divided, notoriously slow-moving and beset by backsliding, faces an uncertain future. Although libertarian President Milei advocates free trade, he has bashed Mercosur as “defective” and advocated pulling Argentina out of the agreement altogether.