I am from a country (Ireland) that has a huge agricultural sector so I sympathise with the argument that this will be bad for European farmers. That said, food production in the EU is already largely kept alive by subsidies so if this deal makes life more difficult for farmers I can see the result being higher subsidies to compensate rather than the large scale closure of European farms. Which obviously isn't great but possibly a fair price to pay for the deal as a whole (I don't know enough about it honestly).
But I think the deal is quite positive from a geopolitical perspective. For one, any deal we make without the US just makes us more resilient in the event of a trade war that looks increasingly inevitable. Obviously Mercosur can't replace the US but it's a step in the right direction. And strengthening ties between the EU and Latin America makes it more difficult for Russia and China to bring that continent into their sphere of influence.
The main issue as I see it is that we need food security in the EU. Especially high quality nutrious dense food like beef.
And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.
Mercusor nations only get lower tariffs up to a certain amount. For meat that's roughly 1.5% of EU production. That is no threat to Europe's strategic capacity.
> The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.
Everything I have read suggests the EU has controls to "temporarily suspend tariff preferences on agricultural imports from Mercosur if these imports harm EU producers"
Who are you? If you're an expert, can you share a couple links with some analysis of which part of this agreement will harm the environment, so I know exactly what you're talking about? And not in a vague hand-wavey way with all these weasel-words about "may very well", but an actual thing, because I live here and can vote, but I think this is a good deal, and am genuinely confused why anyone would think it isn't, so if I can get educated here, I don't want to pass up the chance!
I'm currently in Brazil. Buenos Aries has NYC, Miami food prices. One of the things that strikes me the most is price of food here and Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. By shipping the food to Europe and United States, it makes it extremely expensive here. After decades of authoritarian control, the food production here has been concentrated into a few extraordinary families.
The EU farmers are not the only people getting the short stick.
Do you mean the prices are as high as NYC relative to local income? Because if farmers can get NYC prices in their own country I don't see why they would ship their produce all the way to the EU, where they won't even be able to get that (NYC is more expensive than the large majority of Europe).
Argentina is an outlier as their economy is in the dumps, for the rest of SA food is much cheaper than in Europe. But in general you are right that food prices in some countries in SA are artificially high because most of our food is exported, so the domestic market has to pay a premium. We also export the highest quality food. If we fed the domestic market first and exported the surplus food prices would be a fraction of what they are today.
I was in BA quite recently and didn't find it that expensive in restaurants, even in Recoleta. Inflation is so volatile there it can change by the week I guess. But if what you are saying is true about meat being so expensive, I think that just means that meat isn't going to be sold to Europe, because Europeans aren't going to pay that price and Argentinian meat producers aren't going to ship their produce to Europe and comply with all the red tape to get the same or lower prices. Granted, in some poorer areas where meat is currently quite cheap the effects of competition could be more acute.
That is relative. It makes it expensive compared to our people's purchasing power. Most people here don't earn much.
In more absolute terms (costs, etc), food in Brazil is incredibly cheap. Also abundant and varied (we have all climates within our borders, can plant/grow anything) to levels that people in the US and EU cannot understand.
I can prepare $50 USD meals for $30 BRL (which is about $6 USD). Not only premium beef, but premium fish, fruit, chocolate, wine, cheese (that's why wine and cheese are protected in the deal).
People told me this, and I only really believed when I visited the US and saw their food offerings in the market. I was shocked, and thankful for living here.
What hurts EU farmers the most are the huge supermarket chains which control prices. The rules®ulations thing is an often cited meme but the price war is much more impactful.
In fact we could produce for example in Germany milk in a sustainable and very environmentally friendly way if it would just cost a couple cents more, like 10 cents or even less.
But consumers will basically riot if you raise the prices there so the supermarket chains don’t do it and instead put more pressure on the farmers to produce cheaply.
If you read the MERCOSUR agreement then you’ll see there are a ton of protections included against the thing you are afraid of.
We do have those markets but they are much more expensive (for exactly that reason that they aren’t subject to the price gauge as the supermarkets are).
They are essentially for some (rich) hippies/yuppies only.
I can’t speak for other EU countries but in Germany people will buy the cheapest food almost always. Quality or farmer welfare is a minor concern for the majority.
Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea?
> And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs.
Almost the whole EU budget is for agriculture subsidies. Countries outside EU have to comply with the same standards. The US could for instance export in bulk to the EU, if they would manage to bring food up to basic standards. It doesn't happen, but is not because the market isn't open.
> Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea?
Food security is the first concern for every society, because without food we will all die. The reason almost the whole EU budget (hyperbole, but indeed it is a lot of the EU budget) is spent on agricultural subsidies is precisely to protect our food security.
Most of the sensitive food imports from Mercosur (including beef) are subject to quotas specifically to protect the domestic EU food production chain.
It's true that EU farmers are subject to a lot of burdens and costs, but I also think people are seriously underestimating just how effective a lot of the European agricultural sector is. In fact, this deal is probably going to result in a lot more export of high value, prestigious food items like cheeses and cured meats to South America, which could even have the surprising effect of increasing the amount of farm animals raised in Europe.
Removing tariffs on beef specifically is a serious mistake, there's no need to incentivise any more production of that.
Other agricultural imports, like soy and coffee beans, are a huge boon to the EU on the other hand. If this results in cheaper coffee, everyone in my country, for one, will be ecstatic.
While I agree that we ideally shouldn't be incentivizing more beef production, the reality is that making a trade agreement (at least the European way) involves a lot of give-and-take, compromises, and concessions.
Mercosur countries have a powerful beef industry which they're proud of, and their governments are interested in advancing that industry. Lowered beef tariffs were almost certainly one of their prerequisites to forming a deal.
That said, do note that the tariffs are only lowered up to a quota level of beef imports. Relative to the size of the EU's domestic beef industry, these imports are not that significant.
We have to notice the blatant hypocrisy here: on the one hand we are told that the environment and net zero are top priorities, and on the other hand we are also told that it is great to have beef shipped to us from literally the other side of the world... (Tokyo is nearer to Brussels than Buenos Aires)
The process of shipping of beef from Buenos Aires to Brussels has a much smaller climate impact than the process of producing that beef in the first place. In particular, the methane burped up from cows has a gigantic impact on radiative forcing in the upper atmosphere. And again, the amount of beef being allowed to be shipped to Europe is quota'd to a quite amount relative to the domestic industry.
That's not to say that we shouldn't do anything about these emissions, but the solution is going to be to develop more climate friendly shipping techniques, not to eliminate global trade.
Beef from Argentina is basically as good as it gets in terms of animal welfare.
Most are raised under extensive systems (not confined feedlots). They live on large grasslands (hundreds of acres) where they roam freely and graze pastures.
That's completely unlike things like Chicken which live their whole life in over crowded poultry houses, never seeing the outdoors, or even daylight.
Soybeans have probably a worse impact on the environment than beef. Most of the deforestation in SA in the past couple of decades was for soybean farms.
And it's already pretty cheap, how much cheaper can it get? Usually you'd pay somewhere around 1-1.2 EUR for an espresso, 1.5-2.0 EUR for "fancier" coffees, at least here in Spain (depends a lot on exactly where though).
Coffee has been getting more expensive for years, albeit mainly due to climate-related factors rather than political ones. In northern Europe it (like most things) is a lot more expensive.
I'm surprised Trump didn't threaten involved parties with tariffs or military action over that yet. As a European, very happy about that happening, for multiple reasons. It's a shame it took so long
Well yesterday he already imposed tariffs on several EU countries because they oppose the annexation of Greenland, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does the same in this case.
But there is a cap: you can only bring down trade with a country to zero. This might inflict some pain in the immediate, but eventually trade is simply directed elsewhere - and you lose any leverage you have.
Most importantly, Europe needs more trading partners after having lost Russia and now losing the United States. Second, I am happy about German (I suspect it's similar in other EU countries) farmers largely supporting the far-right getting a taste of a world without protectionism and regulations. Finally, I hope for lower grocery prices, not only for myself, but also because it makes the whole social situation less explosive.
Fair trade yes. Unfair trade no. And Mercosur is COMPLETELY unfair to European farmers. It imposes higher standards - and thus costs - on European farmers, while allowing South American farmers to produce with lower quality and adding forbidden substances to grow crops faster - and cheaper.
This is a common meme but wrong.
The imported goods are subject to the same restrictions as those produced within EU.
What hurts EU farmers the most is the big supermarket cartel that controls prices and pushes farmers to produce more and more cheaply (and consumers that react extremely sensitive to every price increase, but that’s a more inconvenient truth)
On average, South American farmers use 2-3 times more pesticides than farmers in Europe. 2-3 times more would be illegal in Europe, but is allowed as part of Mercosur trade.
Pesticides banned in Europe, but allowed in South America: Atrazine, Acephate, Mancozeb, Paraquat, and many more.
Diseases they can produce include: Parkinson's, brain damage in children and lower IQ, infertility, genetic mutations.
This can more some of the incredibly polluting meat (beef) industry to countries where the pollution is lower due to less intensive methods over a larger area, which is a win-win.
This is a boon to any European manufacturer and machining company.
> Make the threat credible and the higher powers would remove Trump in a day or two.
Maybe, maybe not. Trump is here to distract the public via the media business, while behind the scenes ideologues implement Project 2025. The factions behind the GOP aren't aligned on all parts, so an erratic path is to be expected.
What unites them is that their agenda isn't aligned with the electorate. People still try to make sense of things, like this is just another administration, maybe a weird one, but fundamentally part of the same society as you and me. We can't recognize the real nature of that beast, because we are short of imagination. And... we don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, right?
The top isn't compatible with democracy, people like Thiel are not shy about it. We just don't want to believe that.
There is some valid criticism raised by farmers in my country (Romania) related to use of pesticides and other substances that are forbidden in EU, but permitted in Mercosur and products can be imported even with the forbidden substances in it. That sounds pretty bad, consumer protection is the only part that I still like about modern EU.
But is that really true, i.e. were you able to find actual facts supporting this? I'm asking because in Germany there are similar talking points driven by the farmer's associations (actually just the big agro corps, actual small-scale farmers don't have much of a voice in these) and everytime I tried to dig into a particular topic, it didn't seem to be supported by actual facts.
Who controls it though? A lot of non-compliant products are imported from China in plain sight, as there are 0 control and LATAM countries have no incentives in enforcing it.
Food safety is ensured by controlling at the production level, with physical inspections. Given the sheer amount of food traded and imported the lab measures are very unreliable and costly.
Private consumer protection groups very often find problematic products. Honey is a good example, massive fake honey from China has been being dumped in the EU for the last 20 years, authorities don't care at all and allow it to continue.
From consumer perspective this agreement changes nothing, explicitly stating that. It does not allow lower quality of products imported from Mercosur. All EU standards for food safety remain applicable and EU may adopt stronger standards in the future.
Some stuff forbidden in EU is used in e.g. Brazil, but as long as residues are at safe level, it’s considered ok. European farmers are against this part, because their business model relying on only safe substances is threatened. However, it may be possible as well that EU regulatory pressure will push American farmers to adopt stricter standards for their exports.
No one controls for the food quality imported in the EU. If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products. Massive amounts of fake honey from China is being sold in the internal market with absolutely no repercussions.
The only way to ensure food safety is to control the production sites, which Mercosur doesn't allow.
Safe level is a bad metric. Lately the safe level for alcohol consumption was set to zero, even if it was considered safe in the past to have some drinks.
This is why this FTA doesn’t restrict EU on making it more strict. If new health risks will be discovered, they will come up with new regulations and farmers in EU may have an advantage of being already compliant.
This is a bad deal for many European countries that still have a strong farming industry, and for Europeans in general too.
Once again, Germany has pushed through its interests at the expense of other European nations like Poland. This time even France was against it.
What is Germany going to get? A new market for their decaying automobile industry.
What is the rest of Europe going to get? Cheap, low quality food shipped thousands of kilometers. Food produced with lower standards than food produced in the EU - so farmers in Europe now have to face unfair competition.
This is a boon for any European manufacturing and tech company. Not "just" German car manufacturers but especially machining and pharmaceutical companies.
Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU, and has an outsized political capital for their importance based on historical momentum. This is also primarily bad for the beef industry, which is produced in the EU using very intensive and polluting (ammonia) methods which are also bad for animal welfare. They deserve no sympathy.
> Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU
As it should be if we don't want to wake up one fine day in the middle of a global war with no food supply because of a naval blockade and have our children starve to death.
Mercusor nations only get lower tariffs up to a certain amount. For meat that's roughly 1.5% of EU production. That is no threat to Europe's strategic capacity.
That would happen anyway as the EU is a net importer of fertilizer.
Fortunately there's around 800kg per capita worth of food storage in the EU, so should a war break out we're not all immediately dead - just vegetarian after a period of slaughtering all the livestock that can't be fed.
We can always eat bugs that the EU authorized for human consumption. I would at least. Cricket farms are more sustainable than cattle or pig farming. I like to think of them as grass shrimp.
If you want to use national security as a justification for subsidies, you need to be careful with what you are subsidizing. Only essential things should be subsidized. Non-essential things can be left to the market, or at least their subsidies require other justifications.
From a national security perspective, it is essential to provide basic nutrition to people when international trade is disrupted. Having access to food people enjoy eating is not essential. The viability of existing agricultural businesses is not essential. The preservation of cultural traditions related to food and agriculture is not essential. And so on.
It's also important to consider where the subsidies should be directed. Here in Finland, the explicit justification for agricultural subsidies has always been the assumption that food produced in "European countries that still have a strong farming industry" might not be available during a crisis.
This kind of incentive should not block trade. If we need sufficient production capacity for security reasons, it’s ok to subsidize it, but the product should still compete on the market and surplus can always be donated to UN. There’s enough starving people on this planet.
Right now the current system is totally inefficient, with a lot of food waste, and a lot of ruined landscapes and soil because of pollution and intrants
We need on the contrary to produce less globally, but more organically, and to reduce waste and produce locally
Most of Europe has long reached a population density that makes it effectively impossible to achieve self-sufficiency, so this argument is pointless.
This is going to be a good agreement if it is policed well enough that Mercosur countries are effectively forced to raise their food-production standards (because accepting imports doesn't automatically mean they can ignore regulations on suitability). Europe gets cheaper basic staples and sells LATAM more services and value-added products.
I'd rather help our Latin "cousins" get out of poverty, than having to deal with the insanity of US culture wars.
The eu is a net exporter of agricultural products, what you are saying is plainly false.
The problem is rather the inputs, mainly from mineral sources, used for the production and imported from countries such as Morocco or Russia (before the war). Mercosur doesn't solve any of those problems, and will decrease the EU food autonomy as farms will disappear due to the LATAM dumping.
Shipping food across the globe works great along with green deal. Such food quality is also questionable in many ways because transportability must be #1 priority.
As another commenter pointed out, beef is especially interesting. On one hand EU cries about greenhouse gas and how we should eat less meat. On the other hand goes to reduce price and increase production of beef which such moves. Pure hypocrisy.
I wonder if someone will double down on checking how Brazil is protecting its rains forests? Or will it just look the other way while Europeans eat cheap food that was grown in what was rain forest very recently?
If anything, deepening economic relationships will strengthen European influence over complex issues.
As for transport - enough of this stuff is already transported across the ocean (from LATAM but also South Africa, for example) that I doubt there will be much of a change.
Meat is incredibly bad for food security. If this scenario happens we will have to stop nearly all meat production and become forcibly vegetarian, like some countries did in WW2.
You only need to control 2-3 chokepoints to hugely impact shipment - especially of perishables. The Panama Canal + Caribean + Gibraltar and you get no food in Europe.
Most beef in the EU is a byproduct of the dairy industry. Beef meat comes from culled dairy cows, and a lot of production is done on land that isn't suitable for other uses (mountains, for instance). The EU has also the highest norms in the world regarding food production, and they are tightly enforced, unlike LATAM where a lot of cattle is grazed on deforested land with no regulation regarding chemicals.
What you are saying is very misleading if not plain false.
Restricting the analysis purely to economics is a big mistake, imho, like it was during the Brexit referendum in the UK.
Even in France agriculture is a very small percentage of the GDP and jobs. But what has happened is a demonstration of the loss of sovereignty with the EU effectively imposing something against the wish of the country. So the significance is political, and we'll see if that has tangible political effects or not.
Amazing, we sell them our gadgets and in return we get growth hormone beef and other agricultural products which don't even meet 1980s EU regulations, big win indeed
God forbid we subsidize food too, it's only like the #1 priority when it comes to sovereignty after all, we should definitely not produce locally and rely on foreign countries for our food autonomy
How come folks seem to focus on beef, while IMO the real stakes are in obtaining access to important minerals. Lithium, nickel, copper, graphite, niobium, etc. are often listed. There's a nice breakdown on EC pages:
Yes of course, and the energy or minerals lobbies don't have any kind of agendas of course. They're obviously working for your well being and not serving their interests
Also, one of the most corrupt country in the world will obviously play by the rules
You are just fearmongering based on lies. "Hormone raised cattle", and shit like that.
South America likely has the best beef in the world (I can speak from experience having lived on both sides of the pond). Good that I might have access to real meat here for once.
As far as I know, there is a limitation to how much food is shipped and tied to a percentage of EU farming. So no, the european market will not be flooded.
This exact thing is was said about Poland when they joined the EU, the truth was that French/Spanish/German farmers didn't want to give up non specialized farming, and the same argument has been made and was a primary reason why Ukraine is not in the EU.
Plus it's odd that specifically this deal is so bad, but deals with importing Asian grown food via trade deal is fine.
From a pragmatic perspective it’s just common sense. Europe cannot produce food at prices its population expects. It has no cattle herd to speak of yet consumes lots of beef. It wants for multiple commodities which don’t grow there. And as time goes on there’ll be less and less food production in Europe.
And the idea that food products from SA are low quality is a very old and uninformed take. For better or worse SA has invested heavily in technology in the agricultural sector. Researches from Europe go to Brazil to learn about cattle genetic improvement and farming, not the other way around.
Most of the EU economy comes from services and manufacturing. They’re ensuring a market for that larger base. Angering the small percentage of farmers to ensure food supply and manufacturing survival is the trade off.
The prices partially were affected by green deal stuff and other home-grown regulations. Maybe regulations should be lowered instead of letting in cheaper produce from locations where such regulations don’t apply?
Funny, I think this deal was better for the EU than for Mercosur. Still a net positive for both sides though.
That European farmers are crying over wanting more protectionism is nothing new.
The quotas for food imports to EU are dismal, and the food needs to adhere to EU standards anyway. But even that is being cried about as "unfair competition".
I hope you won't get a reality check if one day there is a famine in Europe caused by outsourcing the entire farming to other continents. The very first thing any enemy force would do is a naval blockade, the rest is patience and lots of deaths.
Farming already is heavily subsidized in every EU country. The whole sector only exists as is precisely because of the fears you point out. And that is perfectly fine, because statistically speaking it already is a rounding error both in share of employment and share of GDP (1.2% of EU GDP), only kept alive for the exact purpose you talk about.
So even if these lobby talking points would be true, and everything had to be 100% subsidized, that wouldn't be a problem.
Wait and see how it goes. This deal might have real political consequences countries opposed to it, especially in France because of the opposition to the deal and by demonstrating that the country no longer has control: so this is a vindication for eurosceptic parties and embarrassing for the most pro-EU ones. This may just be short-term anger, and the whole establishment will push for it to be forgotten asap as the Presidential elections are in just a bit more than a year away.
Europe did not colonize the world - some European countries did. I come from Poland, a country that never colonized another country, so I do not need that moral lecturing.
It is not even a matter of fairness, but of defending one owns interests.
Is it fair to put an entire continent in a position where it does not belong? If I recall correctly Australia and New Zealand were mostly colonized by the British Empire, not by "Europe", Canada by UK and France, US by Western Europe, etc. Europe is a continent, not a country, and Europe did not colonize anything, some countries did.
Quite a few people are willing to ruin their own lives and prosperity to make others worse off. Once you realize that, a lot of things become more explicable.
But I don't think their goal is explicitly to make others worse off, it's just the consequence of their actions. But in their mind, they're rightful, they're doing the best they can and they care about others on the level "you should". Most people think like this, including you and me.
I am from a country (Ireland) that has a huge agricultural sector so I sympathise with the argument that this will be bad for European farmers. That said, food production in the EU is already largely kept alive by subsidies so if this deal makes life more difficult for farmers I can see the result being higher subsidies to compensate rather than the large scale closure of European farms. Which obviously isn't great but possibly a fair price to pay for the deal as a whole (I don't know enough about it honestly).
But I think the deal is quite positive from a geopolitical perspective. For one, any deal we make without the US just makes us more resilient in the event of a trade war that looks increasingly inevitable. Obviously Mercosur can't replace the US but it's a step in the right direction. And strengthening ties between the EU and Latin America makes it more difficult for Russia and China to bring that continent into their sphere of influence.
The main issue as I see it is that we need food security in the EU. Especially high quality nutrious dense food like beef.
And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.
Mercusor nations only get lower tariffs up to a certain amount. For meat that's roughly 1.5% of EU production. That is no threat to Europe's strategic capacity.
https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou...
> The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.
Everything I have read suggests the EU has controls to "temporarily suspend tariff preferences on agricultural imports from Mercosur if these imports harm EU producers"
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-mercosur-agre...
and they intend to "uphold EU animal welfare rules" specifically so consumers aren't harmed either.
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/09/04/eu-mercosur...
> The main issue as I see it...
Who are you? If you're an expert, can you share a couple links with some analysis of which part of this agreement will harm the environment, so I know exactly what you're talking about? And not in a vague hand-wavey way with all these weasel-words about "may very well", but an actual thing, because I live here and can vote, but I think this is a good deal, and am genuinely confused why anyone would think it isn't, so if I can get educated here, I don't want to pass up the chance!
I'm currently in Brazil. Buenos Aries has NYC, Miami food prices. One of the things that strikes me the most is price of food here and Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. By shipping the food to Europe and United States, it makes it extremely expensive here. After decades of authoritarian control, the food production here has been concentrated into a few extraordinary families.
The EU farmers are not the only people getting the short stick.
Do you mean the prices are as high as NYC relative to local income? Because if farmers can get NYC prices in their own country I don't see why they would ship their produce all the way to the EU, where they won't even be able to get that (NYC is more expensive than the large majority of Europe).
I mean a cheese burger costs $18 USD and I couldn't find cheaper without having to walk 3 miles in Buenos Aries.
Argentina is an outlier as their economy is in the dumps, for the rest of SA food is much cheaper than in Europe. But in general you are right that food prices in some countries in SA are artificially high because most of our food is exported, so the domestic market has to pay a premium. We also export the highest quality food. If we fed the domestic market first and exported the surplus food prices would be a fraction of what they are today.
I was in BA quite recently and didn't find it that expensive in restaurants, even in Recoleta. Inflation is so volatile there it can change by the week I guess. But if what you are saying is true about meat being so expensive, I think that just means that meat isn't going to be sold to Europe, because Europeans aren't going to pay that price and Argentinian meat producers aren't going to ship their produce to Europe and comply with all the red tape to get the same or lower prices. Granted, in some poorer areas where meat is currently quite cheap the effects of competition could be more acute.
your comment gives impression as if Buenos Aries were in Brazil, so not sure what to make of it...
> it makes it extremely expensive here
That is relative. It makes it expensive compared to our people's purchasing power. Most people here don't earn much.
In more absolute terms (costs, etc), food in Brazil is incredibly cheap. Also abundant and varied (we have all climates within our borders, can plant/grow anything) to levels that people in the US and EU cannot understand.
I can prepare $50 USD meals for $30 BRL (which is about $6 USD). Not only premium beef, but premium fish, fruit, chocolate, wine, cheese (that's why wine and cheese are protected in the deal).
People told me this, and I only really believed when I visited the US and saw their food offerings in the market. I was shocked, and thankful for living here.
What hurts EU farmers the most are the huge supermarket chains which control prices. The rules®ulations thing is an often cited meme but the price war is much more impactful.
In fact we could produce for example in Germany milk in a sustainable and very environmentally friendly way if it would just cost a couple cents more, like 10 cents or even less. But consumers will basically riot if you raise the prices there so the supermarket chains don’t do it and instead put more pressure on the farmers to produce cheaply.
If you read the MERCOSUR agreement then you’ll see there are a ton of protections included against the thing you are afraid of.
Don’t you guys have farmer’s markets? I buy a lot of my stuff direct from the farmer.
We do have those markets but they are much more expensive (for exactly that reason that they aren’t subject to the price gauge as the supermarkets are). They are essentially for some (rich) hippies/yuppies only.
I can’t speak for other EU countries but in Germany people will buy the cheapest food almost always. Quality or farmer welfare is a minor concern for the majority.
Of course we do
But most people don't want to make the effort to go there instead of buying everything at the supermarket
Even though they still say that they want our farmers to have decent working conditions and incomes
But even the farmers will eat cheap imported lentils over local ones
Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea?
Almost the whole EU budget is for agriculture subsidies. Countries outside EU have to comply with the same standards. The US could for instance export in bulk to the EU, if they would manage to bring food up to basic standards. It doesn't happen, but is not because the market isn't open.> Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea?
Food security is the first concern for every society, because without food we will all die. The reason almost the whole EU budget (hyperbole, but indeed it is a lot of the EU budget) is spent on agricultural subsidies is precisely to protect our food security.
Most of the sensitive food imports from Mercosur (including beef) are subject to quotas specifically to protect the domestic EU food production chain.
It's true that EU farmers are subject to a lot of burdens and costs, but I also think people are seriously underestimating just how effective a lot of the European agricultural sector is. In fact, this deal is probably going to result in a lot more export of high value, prestigious food items like cheeses and cured meats to South America, which could even have the surprising effect of increasing the amount of farm animals raised in Europe.
If you want food security, beef is one of the worst options. It is extremely land-inefficient (not to mention very polluting as well).
Switzerland is part of it too but with a separate deal signed last year but still has to be approved in parliament.
Switzerland also has a free-trade agreement with china that has been very lucrative. No other European country has this.
>Switzerland also has a free-trade agreement with china
And India ;)
https://www.bag.admin.ch/en/newnsb/O8hG66Fgv1j36OLRRz0Ud
The PRC doesn't even have free trade within itself. Probably a one sided deal, but the apparatchiks have somewhere to stow their money now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_China
Removing tariffs on beef specifically is a serious mistake, there's no need to incentivise any more production of that.
Other agricultural imports, like soy and coffee beans, are a huge boon to the EU on the other hand. If this results in cheaper coffee, everyone in my country, for one, will be ecstatic.
While I agree that we ideally shouldn't be incentivizing more beef production, the reality is that making a trade agreement (at least the European way) involves a lot of give-and-take, compromises, and concessions.
Mercosur countries have a powerful beef industry which they're proud of, and their governments are interested in advancing that industry. Lowered beef tariffs were almost certainly one of their prerequisites to forming a deal.
That said, do note that the tariffs are only lowered up to a quota level of beef imports. Relative to the size of the EU's domestic beef industry, these imports are not that significant.
We have to notice the blatant hypocrisy here: on the one hand we are told that the environment and net zero are top priorities, and on the other hand we are also told that it is great to have beef shipped to us from literally the other side of the world... (Tokyo is nearer to Brussels than Buenos Aires)
The process of shipping of beef from Buenos Aires to Brussels has a much smaller climate impact than the process of producing that beef in the first place. In particular, the methane burped up from cows has a gigantic impact on radiative forcing in the upper atmosphere. And again, the amount of beef being allowed to be shipped to Europe is quota'd to a quite amount relative to the domestic industry.
That's not to say that we shouldn't do anything about these emissions, but the solution is going to be to develop more climate friendly shipping techniques, not to eliminate global trade.
Beef from Argentina is basically as good as it gets in terms of animal welfare.
Most are raised under extensive systems (not confined feedlots). They live on large grasslands (hundreds of acres) where they roam freely and graze pastures.
That's completely unlike things like Chicken which live their whole life in over crowded poultry houses, never seeing the outdoors, or even daylight.
Animal welfare is not the issue here.
Pollution, land and wildlife destruction is the issue.
Beef is probably the worst use of land to produce food given how much input it requires and negative outputs it produces.
What’s wrong with pasture raised beef like they raise in Argentina?
Methane emissions, I assume. (Solvable with 2% seaweed in the diet)
Also possibly rainforest destruction for crops, but I'm not as sure about that.
Absolutely nothing it is just European farmers crying. As if the EU doesn't already spend billions on farming subsidies.
Even if WW3 breaks out we can turn all of Europe into a vegetable garden in less than a year- the UK did this in 1940. Nobody is going to starve FFS.
Soybeans have probably a worse impact on the environment than beef. Most of the deforestation in SA in the past couple of decades was for soybean farms.
Well, that's a very misleading statement. Most of those soybeans aren't being produced to be eaten by humans. Most soybeans are used for animal feed.
It's the meat industry that is primarily driving deforestation, both directly for pasture, and indirectly for animal feed.
Not in South America. Cattle here eats grass. Soybean is exported mainly to China which uses it for other reasons, not feeding cattle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#Uses
Yes, as you can see, it’s not for cattle.
Cheaper coffee this must mean for europe.
And it's already pretty cheap, how much cheaper can it get? Usually you'd pay somewhere around 1-1.2 EUR for an espresso, 1.5-2.0 EUR for "fancier" coffees, at least here in Spain (depends a lot on exactly where though).
Coffee has been getting more expensive for years, albeit mainly due to climate-related factors rather than political ones. In northern Europe it (like most things) is a lot more expensive.
You never make your own coffee at home then?
Price of coffee as in the ingredient for making the espresso has about doubled since covid.
I'm surprised Trump didn't threaten involved parties with tariffs or military action over that yet. As a European, very happy about that happening, for multiple reasons. It's a shame it took so long
Well yesterday he already imposed tariffs on several EU countries because they oppose the annexation of Greenland, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does the same in this case.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-vows-tariffs-eigh...
Maybe that’ll still come once he gets his intel briefing from Fox & Friends
Me too. I just think he needs to pick his battles right now as Greenland is taking so much space.
Trump used this card already, he already imposed tariffs once so nobody cares about that threat anymore.
That's the thing with tariffs, they only work once.
You can always impose additional tariffs until it is ludicrous levels. Eg 100% or more like China has reached a few times before it was walked back.
But there is a cap: you can only bring down trade with a country to zero. This might inflict some pain in the immediate, but eventually trade is simply directed elsewhere - and you lose any leverage you have.
It doesn't matter if he does it or not now, the US market is now seen as unreliable and risky.
If there's one thing companies hate more than taxes, it's uncertainty.
The multiple reasons being exactly?
In my opinion it is a net negative for all countries in Europe, but one.
Most importantly, Europe needs more trading partners after having lost Russia and now losing the United States. Second, I am happy about German (I suspect it's similar in other EU countries) farmers largely supporting the far-right getting a taste of a world without protectionism and regulations. Finally, I hope for lower grocery prices, not only for myself, but also because it makes the whole social situation less explosive.
Fair trade yes. Unfair trade no. And Mercosur is COMPLETELY unfair to European farmers. It imposes higher standards - and thus costs - on European farmers, while allowing South American farmers to produce with lower quality and adding forbidden substances to grow crops faster - and cheaper.
This is a common meme but wrong. The imported goods are subject to the same restrictions as those produced within EU.
What hurts EU farmers the most is the big supermarket cartel that controls prices and pushes farmers to produce more and more cheaply (and consumers that react extremely sensitive to every price increase, but that’s a more inconvenient truth)
That's like an anti-cartel, a cartel that keeps the consumer prices low.
With 12 euro/kg currently I wouldn't call beef in Germany extremely cheap on the world scale. Poultry has pretty much crossed the 10 euro mark too.
From Reuters: “ The extra imports represent 1.6% of EU beef consumption and 1.4% for poultry”.
Maybe take a deep breath and relax a bit before storming the ramparts. This is a slight adjustment not something undercutting all EU farming.
Today.
And how does Asian countries curtail this?
Since we got trade deals when it comes to food with them, and they 100% do not have the same standard as European farmers.
And the EU won't check these inferior products for any problems?
> South American farmers to produce with lower quality and adding forbidden substances to grow crops faster - and cheaper.
This is a lot of fearmongering in a small sentences.
Nothing in the agreement says that that the EU has ro accept food produced with substandard practices.
Also, food produce in South America is not exactly low standards.
On average, South American farmers use 2-3 times more pesticides than farmers in Europe. 2-3 times more would be illegal in Europe, but is allowed as part of Mercosur trade.
Pesticides banned in Europe, but allowed in South America: Atrazine, Acephate, Mancozeb, Paraquat, and many more.
Diseases they can produce include: Parkinson's, brain damage in children and lower IQ, infertility, genetic mutations.
This can more some of the incredibly polluting meat (beef) industry to countries where the pollution is lower due to less intensive methods over a larger area, which is a win-win.
This is a boon to any European manufacturer and machining company.
At which point the "rest of the world" (everyone but the US) can just threaten Trump with making the US economically irrelevant?
That would seem a simple and peaceful solution to the Trump-inflicted bullying - stop messing around or we'll cease all commerce with you.
As I see it, just the bluff would suffice. Make the threat credible and the higher powers would remove Trump in a day or two.
What unites them is that their agenda isn't aligned with the electorate. People still try to make sense of things, like this is just another administration, maybe a weird one, but fundamentally part of the same society as you and me. We can't recognize the real nature of that beast, because we are short of imagination. And... we don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, right?
The top isn't compatible with democracy, people like Thiel are not shy about it. We just don't want to believe that.
There is some valid criticism raised by farmers in my country (Romania) related to use of pesticides and other substances that are forbidden in EU, but permitted in Mercosur and products can be imported even with the forbidden substances in it. That sounds pretty bad, consumer protection is the only part that I still like about modern EU.
But is that really true, i.e. were you able to find actual facts supporting this? I'm asking because in Germany there are similar talking points driven by the farmer's associations (actually just the big agro corps, actual small-scale farmers don't have much of a voice in these) and everytime I tried to dig into a particular topic, it didn't seem to be supported by actual facts.
Another partner, but the same issue: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/03/news/france-cana...
What facts are you looking for, real products imported on this agreement and analyzed in a lab? Obviously not, the agreement was just signed. But, I read about examples of substances allowed in the Mercosur countries and forbidden in EU. https://www.collectifstoptafta.org/IMG/pdf/mercosur_et_pesti... , https://euobserver.com/climate/151818
Does the deal actually allow food to be imported into the EU if it does not comply with EU health and safety regulations?
It does not.
Who controls it though? A lot of non-compliant products are imported from China in plain sight, as there are 0 control and LATAM countries have no incentives in enforcing it.
European consumer protection authorities control the quality and food is regularly tested, of course. European producers aren’t saints too.
Food safety is ensured by controlling at the production level, with physical inspections. Given the sheer amount of food traded and imported the lab measures are very unreliable and costly.
Private consumer protection groups very often find problematic products. Honey is a good example, massive fake honey from China has been being dumped in the EU for the last 20 years, authorities don't care at all and allow it to continue.
From consumer perspective this agreement changes nothing, explicitly stating that. It does not allow lower quality of products imported from Mercosur. All EU standards for food safety remain applicable and EU may adopt stronger standards in the future.
Some stuff forbidden in EU is used in e.g. Brazil, but as long as residues are at safe level, it’s considered ok. European farmers are against this part, because their business model relying on only safe substances is threatened. However, it may be possible as well that EU regulatory pressure will push American farmers to adopt stricter standards for their exports.
No one controls for the food quality imported in the EU. If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products. Massive amounts of fake honey from China is being sold in the internal market with absolutely no repercussions.
The only way to ensure food safety is to control the production sites, which Mercosur doesn't allow.
>If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products.
If nobody controls it, where all those papers come from?
Private consumer protection groups have no enforcement power and their action is a drop in the ocean.
Safe level is a bad metric. Lately the safe level for alcohol consumption was set to zero, even if it was considered safe in the past to have some drinks.
This is why this FTA doesn’t restrict EU on making it more strict. If new health risks will be discovered, they will come up with new regulations and farmers in EU may have an advantage of being already compliant.
Is it valid? Are those actually farmers?
The criticism seems to come from the political side most likely to steal your wallet while talking to you, and from the nazi wannabes.
This is a bad deal for many European countries that still have a strong farming industry, and for Europeans in general too.
Once again, Germany has pushed through its interests at the expense of other European nations like Poland. This time even France was against it.
What is Germany going to get? A new market for their decaying automobile industry.
What is the rest of Europe going to get? Cheap, low quality food shipped thousands of kilometers. Food produced with lower standards than food produced in the EU - so farmers in Europe now have to face unfair competition.
This is an incredibly mid take.
This is a boon for any European manufacturing and tech company. Not "just" German car manufacturers but especially machining and pharmaceutical companies.
Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU, and has an outsized political capital for their importance based on historical momentum. This is also primarily bad for the beef industry, which is produced in the EU using very intensive and polluting (ammonia) methods which are also bad for animal welfare. They deserve no sympathy.
> Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU
As it should be if we don't want to wake up one fine day in the middle of a global war with no food supply because of a naval blockade and have our children starve to death.
Mercusor nations only get lower tariffs up to a certain amount. For meat that's roughly 1.5% of EU production. That is no threat to Europe's strategic capacity.
That would happen anyway as the EU is a net importer of fertilizer.
Fortunately there's around 800kg per capita worth of food storage in the EU, so should a war break out we're not all immediately dead - just vegetarian after a period of slaughtering all the livestock that can't be fed.
We can always eat bugs that the EU authorized for human consumption. I would at least. Cricket farms are more sustainable than cattle or pig farming. I like to think of them as grass shrimp.
If you want to use national security as a justification for subsidies, you need to be careful with what you are subsidizing. Only essential things should be subsidized. Non-essential things can be left to the market, or at least their subsidies require other justifications.
From a national security perspective, it is essential to provide basic nutrition to people when international trade is disrupted. Having access to food people enjoy eating is not essential. The viability of existing agricultural businesses is not essential. The preservation of cultural traditions related to food and agriculture is not essential. And so on.
It's also important to consider where the subsidies should be directed. Here in Finland, the explicit justification for agricultural subsidies has always been the assumption that food produced in "European countries that still have a strong farming industry" might not be available during a crisis.
This kind of incentive should not block trade. If we need sufficient production capacity for security reasons, it’s ok to subsidize it, but the product should still compete on the market and surplus can always be donated to UN. There’s enough starving people on this planet.
Right now the current system is totally inefficient, with a lot of food waste, and a lot of ruined landscapes and soil because of pollution and intrants
We need on the contrary to produce less globally, but more organically, and to reduce waste and produce locally
It may be inefficient, but protectionism is never a solution and we are not yet in a state where food is abundant and accessible to everyone.
Most of Europe has long reached a population density that makes it effectively impossible to achieve self-sufficiency, so this argument is pointless.
This is going to be a good agreement if it is policed well enough that Mercosur countries are effectively forced to raise their food-production standards (because accepting imports doesn't automatically mean they can ignore regulations on suitability). Europe gets cheaper basic staples and sells LATAM more services and value-added products.
I'd rather help our Latin "cousins" get out of poverty, than having to deal with the insanity of US culture wars.
>Most of Europe has long reached a population density that makes it effectively impossible to achieve self-sufficiency, so this argument is pointless.
Current population density isn't an issue at all, but energy is.
The eu is a net exporter of agricultural products, what you are saying is plainly false.
The problem is rather the inputs, mainly from mineral sources, used for the production and imported from countries such as Morocco or Russia (before the war). Mercosur doesn't solve any of those problems, and will decrease the EU food autonomy as farms will disappear due to the LATAM dumping.
Shipping food across the globe works great along with green deal. Such food quality is also questionable in many ways because transportability must be #1 priority.
As another commenter pointed out, beef is especially interesting. On one hand EU cries about greenhouse gas and how we should eat less meat. On the other hand goes to reduce price and increase production of beef which such moves. Pure hypocrisy.
I wonder if someone will double down on checking how Brazil is protecting its rains forests? Or will it just look the other way while Europeans eat cheap food that was grown in what was rain forest very recently?
If anything, deepening economic relationships will strengthen European influence over complex issues.
As for transport - enough of this stuff is already transported across the ocean (from LATAM but also South Africa, for example) that I doubt there will be much of a change.
Meat is incredibly bad for food security. If this scenario happens we will have to stop nearly all meat production and become forcibly vegetarian, like some countries did in WW2.
Who could possibly impose a naval blockade on the EU? Not even the US Navy would be able to do so.
You only need to control 2-3 chokepoints to hugely impact shipment - especially of perishables. The Panama Canal + Caribean + Gibraltar and you get no food in Europe.
Most beef in the EU is a byproduct of the dairy industry. Beef meat comes from culled dairy cows, and a lot of production is done on land that isn't suitable for other uses (mountains, for instance). The EU has also the highest norms in the world regarding food production, and they are tightly enforced, unlike LATAM where a lot of cattle is grazed on deforested land with no regulation regarding chemicals.
What you are saying is very misleading if not plain false.
Restricting the analysis purely to economics is a big mistake, imho, like it was during the Brexit referendum in the UK.
Even in France agriculture is a very small percentage of the GDP and jobs. But what has happened is a demonstration of the loss of sovereignty with the EU effectively imposing something against the wish of the country. So the significance is political, and we'll see if that has tangible political effects or not.
In a time where:
- there are climate change issues
- there are many issues with pollution getting in the food chain
- we need to be more autonomous, and less depending on other nations, because of idiots like Trump
I think on the contrary we should defend our local agriculture, when it is respectful of nature
Amazing, we sell them our gadgets and in return we get growth hormone beef and other agricultural products which don't even meet 1980s EU regulations, big win indeed
God forbid we subsidize food too, it's only like the #1 priority when it comes to sovereignty after all, we should definitely not produce locally and rely on foreign countries for our food autonomy
How come folks seem to focus on beef, while IMO the real stakes are in obtaining access to important minerals. Lithium, nickel, copper, graphite, niobium, etc. are often listed. There's a nice breakdown on EC pages:
https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou...
Why do we focus on the shit part of the deal? Do I need to explain that really?
The shit part is what easily stris emotions and can be played by various actors and their agendas.
Yes of course, and the energy or minerals lobbies don't have any kind of agendas of course. They're obviously working for your well being and not serving their interests
Also, one of the most corrupt country in the world will obviously play by the rules
Because that part of the deal is not shitty.
You are just fearmongering based on lies. "Hormone raised cattle", and shit like that.
South America likely has the best beef in the world (I can speak from experience having lived on both sides of the pond). Good that I might have access to real meat here for once.
As far as I know, there is a limitation to how much food is shipped and tied to a percentage of EU farming. So no, the european market will not be flooded.
No need to add racism to the argument.
This exact thing is was said about Poland when they joined the EU, the truth was that French/Spanish/German farmers didn't want to give up non specialized farming, and the same argument has been made and was a primary reason why Ukraine is not in the EU.
Plus it's odd that specifically this deal is so bad, but deals with importing Asian grown food via trade deal is fine.
Isn't it geopolitics over economics, future-building when preexisting relationships are increasingly unreliable?
"paying a premium to have options in multiple possible futures"
From a pragmatic perspective it’s just common sense. Europe cannot produce food at prices its population expects. It has no cattle herd to speak of yet consumes lots of beef. It wants for multiple commodities which don’t grow there. And as time goes on there’ll be less and less food production in Europe.
And the idea that food products from SA are low quality is a very old and uninformed take. For better or worse SA has invested heavily in technology in the agricultural sector. Researches from Europe go to Brazil to learn about cattle genetic improvement and farming, not the other way around.
Most of the EU economy comes from services and manufacturing. They’re ensuring a market for that larger base. Angering the small percentage of farmers to ensure food supply and manufacturing survival is the trade off.
The prices partially were affected by green deal stuff and other home-grown regulations. Maybe regulations should be lowered instead of letting in cheaper produce from locations where such regulations don’t apply?
Funny, I think this deal was better for the EU than for Mercosur. Still a net positive for both sides though.
That European farmers are crying over wanting more protectionism is nothing new.
The quotas for food imports to EU are dismal, and the food needs to adhere to EU standards anyway. But even that is being cried about as "unfair competition".
Farmers like to complain and always get new privileges with every protest
I for once are happy they are getting a reality check for once
I hope you won't get a reality check if one day there is a famine in Europe caused by outsourcing the entire farming to other continents. The very first thing any enemy force would do is a naval blockade, the rest is patience and lots of deaths.
Farming already is heavily subsidized in every EU country. The whole sector only exists as is precisely because of the fears you point out. And that is perfectly fine, because statistically speaking it already is a rounding error both in share of employment and share of GDP (1.2% of EU GDP), only kept alive for the exact purpose you talk about.
So even if these lobby talking points would be true, and everything had to be 100% subsidized, that wouldn't be a problem.
Buddy, we are talking about a quota that is less than 2% of the beef produced in EU.
If having 1% of beef imported causes a famine, then the farming in Europe is actually pretty awful.
Wait and see how it goes. This deal might have real political consequences countries opposed to it, especially in France because of the opposition to the deal and by demonstrating that the country no longer has control: so this is a vindication for eurosceptic parties and embarrassing for the most pro-EU ones. This may just be short-term anger, and the whole establishment will push for it to be forgotten asap as the Presidential elections are in just a bit more than a year away.
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Is it fair for Europe to colonize north america, Australia, canada, New Zealand and dumping what's produced there on other countries?
Europe did not colonize the world - some European countries did. I come from Poland, a country that never colonized another country, so I do not need that moral lecturing.
It is not even a matter of fairness, but of defending one owns interests.
Is it fair to put an entire continent in a position where it does not belong? If I recall correctly Australia and New Zealand were mostly colonized by the British Empire, not by "Europe", Canada by UK and France, US by Western Europe, etc. Europe is a continent, not a country, and Europe did not colonize anything, some countries did.
The eventual aim is to join all these blocs up.
Isn't the eventual aim of all of us on this planet that we all trade free, live peacefully and have our own prosperous lives?
Quite a few people are willing to ruin their own lives and prosperity to make others worse off. Once you realize that, a lot of things become more explicable.
But I don't think their goal is explicitly to make others worse off, it's just the consequence of their actions. But in their mind, they're rightful, they're doing the best they can and they care about others on the level "you should". Most people think like this, including you and me.