Emmanuel Macron on South American tour to “relaunch cooperation” with a continent that looks elsewhere

Sixty after General de Gaulle's trip to Latin America, Emmanuel Macron flew to Argentina, before Brazil and Chile.

The six-day trip that Emmanuel Macron begins on Saturday November 16, 60 years after General de Gaulle's journey, will notably allow him to participate in the G20 in Rio de Janeiro. The objective is to strengthen ties with Latin America, in a landscape disrupted by Chinese pre-eminence and the prospect of Donald Trump's return to the White House.

China is now South America's largest trading partner. Beijing is in full offensive, relegating the influence of the United States to the background, even if the shock wave of the election of Donald Trump is also shaking this part of the world. The Argentinian Javier Milei, an ultraconservative libertarian, has just returned from Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared with his “friend” Donald. It is him that Emmanuel Macron will meet first on Saturday evening, convinced that we must dialogue, even with his most radical counterparts. However, linking them to global issues, particularly climate issues, is a vast program, with Javier Milei sharing absolute climate skepticism with Donald Trump.

What common ground can the French president then defend? That of “values” and one “history”, will support Emmanuel Macron on Thursday in Chile, but also “the economy of tomorrow”affirms the Élysée. A task that promises to be complicated. Because if France needs, like other Europeans, to access the vast South American market and buy its rare metals, it vehemently refuses the almost completed agreement with Mercosur which threatens to set the French countryside ablaze. Emmanuel Macron will have to explain it to Milei, then to the Brazilian Lula, whom he will meet at the G20 in Rio on Monday and Tuesday.