Driving unequal exchange: EU ‘free trade’ policy and the EU-Mercosur negotiations

Andreas Bieler

Chapter 15 in Critical Political Economy of the European Polycrisis, 2025, pp 225-239 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: ’Free trade’ agreements are one of the most important functions of the European Union. Most recently, there have been extensive efforts to complete an agreement with the Mercosur countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In contrast to neo-liberal expectations, however, not everyone is going to benefit from such an agreement. While the EU car manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries are likely to gain from it, European farmers and Mercosur manufacturing industries are set to lose out. In this chapter, I will assess the contestations around the EU–Mercosur negotiations within the structuring conditions of the capitalist social relations of production, including the relentless dynamic of outward expansion. Based on a critical political economy approach, I will argue that such a trade agreement will only lock Mercosur countries further into a situation of unequal exchange, condemning them to focus on the export of primary commodities. Nevertheless, resistance to the treaty continues, and ratification is anything but guaranteed.

Keywords: EU–Mercosur treaty; Exploitation; Free trade; Resistance; Unequal exchange (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035347933
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