O Mercosul em xeque: a estratégia diplomática brasileira diante da crise do projeto de integração (1999-2002)

Abstract

Mercosur, an economic bloc created in 1991 as a free trade area, became an imperfect customs union in 1994, never achieving the goal of a common market. The bloc originated as a product of the international context, in response to the demands of external economic policy generated by the advances of globalization and the second wave of regionalism. It also reflected the regional context, as it was based on bilateral integration between Brazil and Argentina and the legal framework of ALADI. It began as a subregional project involving the "Platinum" countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay – with the intention of extending throughout South America through integration with the Andean Pact. After a period of growth between 1991 and 1998, from 1999 onward, it began to face stagnation in trade flow. In this sense, the research problem proposed is: What was the diplomatic strategy of the Cardoso government in addressing the difficulties in consolidating Mercosur’s integration objectives between 1999 and 2002? The hypothesis is that the Cardoso government sought to continue the integration process, adapting the diplomatic strategy to the conditions and limits imposed, allowing for Argentine protectionism. This is a work of Brazilian foreign policy history, employing the historical method and triangulation of sources. The analysis included specialized literature, classified documents from the Central Archive of Itamaraty – telegraphic communication between the Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, information to the President of the Republic, letters, and briefings from bilateral meetings within thematic files, at confidential and secret levels. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Brazilian diplomats involved in the integration process in the 1990s and 2000s, along with the analysis of news articles from Jornal do Brasil, collected from the Digital Newspaper Archive of the National Library. The results showed that the Cardoso government sought to advance the integration process, adapting its diplomatic strategy to the conditions imposed by the Argentine economic crisis, understanding that insistence on tariff exception agendas and trade liberalization could further weaken Mercosur. Therefore, it invested in: (1) constant political dialogue with all of South America, (2) physical integration projects, (3) cooperation and harmonization of sectoral policies, and (4) deepening economiccommercial integration and investment