Brazil Announces Free Trade Agreement with Palestinian Authority
In a show of support for the Palestinian people and a protest of the ongoing war in Gaza, Brazil’s left-wing president ratified a free trade agreement with the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority that has been tabled for more than a decade.
Long an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause and a two-state solution, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva officially ratified the agreement between the PA and the South American trade bloc known as Mercosur on Friday.
2011 saw the original signing of the trade agreement.
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During his first term in office more than a decade ago, Silva unliterally recognized the existence of a Palestinian state and allowed for the creation of a PA-flagged embassy in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia.
“The agreement is a concrete contribution to an economically viable Palestinian state that can live peacefully and harmoniously with its neighbors,” Brazil’s foreign ministry said on Monday in a statement.
Prior to Friday’s ratification, Mercosur’s total trade with the PA had only amounted to $23 million a year.
Other Mercosur partners, such as Paraguay and Uruguay, have yet to publicly comment on the Brazilian decision, leaving it unclear if the rest of the bloc will follow Brazil and follow through on ratification.
Javier Milei, the right-wing president of Argentina, oversees the second-largest economy in the bloc and is unlikely to follow Silva’s example.
