President Javier Milei will travel this Saturday to Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, to attend the Mercosur Summit, despite the regional bloc's agreement with the European Union being postponed to 2026. According to Noticias Argentinas agency, the president decided to attend the exchange, hosted by his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, despite the ideological clash and the anticipation that the leader of the Workers' Party (PT) would veto the National Congress's decision to reduce Jair Bolsonaro's sentence from 27 to 5 years in prison for an attempted coup. During his participation in the debate, which will take place from noon, the libertarian will insist on the need for the bloc to open up to free trade and break with internal rules that limit agreements with other countries. Despite the high expectations for the signing of the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, the agreement will ultimately be postponed by the European bloc until January. France and Italy have shown reluctance on certain points of the text, arguing that they infringe upon 'the interests of farmers' and 'the food sovereignty of the continent.' The president's visit also comes after a controversy erupted after Guilherme Boulos, head of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil, criticized a post in which Milei celebrated the recent election victory of Chile's José Antonio Kast with an image representing the north of the continent as a shantytown. 'The Argentine president's attack on the Brazilian people is shameful.'
