MERCOSUR facing the slowdown of intra-regional trade and the dynamics of disintegration between 2012 and 2022

analysis and current perspectives in an autonomist perspective

Abstract

In this article we propose to analyze the binomial of regional integration and intra-regional trade in the region -South America- from an autonomist perspective. We address the evolution of trade -in the last decade- of MERCOSUR as a whole with the rest of the South American countries and with China. The development of the article shows the process of disintegration and increased dependence and primarization of the economies of the Mercosur countries. These aspects, although accentuated in recent years, have characterized the economic structures of the countries of the continent and have conditioned the type of international insertion possible within the international system. We seek to analyze how the increase in intra-regional trade as a central dimension - not the only one, but a fundamental one - is a way to strengthen integration processes in terms of autonomy. To achieve this, we consider that in the current context - marked by the effects of the pandemic and the generalized crisis it provoked, together with the war between Russia and Ukraine - it is relevant to reflect on the role of Brazil in regional integration; and of China, since 2009 the main extra-regional trading partner. The problematic question that guides this analysis is about the position that the South American region and the MERCOSUR bloc will play in this new geopolitical scheme.