SAO PAULO/PARIS (Reuters) -Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke by phone on Wednesday with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and discussed U.S. tariffs and the Mercosur-European Union trade deal, Brazil’s government said in a statement.
Lula voiced his opposition to tariffs on Brazilian goods, and the two leaders committed to concluding negotiations on the long-awaited deal between the South American bloc and the EU by the end of the year, the statement said.
Lula had previously said he was hopeful the two parties would be able to finalize the deal in the second half, when his country holds the rotating presidency of Mercosur, which also includes Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The trade pact was agreed in principle in December, but has faced pushback from countries such as France, which says the deal’s terms would harm its agricultural sector.
In a post on X, Macron said he reiterated to Lula his readiness for an “ambitious” EU-Mercosur agreement, “as long as it safeguards the interests of our French and European agriculture, and serves our respective economies.”
“We also spoke at length about economic issues, particularly tariffs, as well as our bilateral cooperation in the fields of defense and transport,” Macron added.
(Reporting by Isabel Teles in Sao Paulo and Makini Brice in Paris; Editing by Gabriel Araujo, Rod Nickel)
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