MEXICO CITY: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Argentina and Mexico next week for talks on trade with two of Latin America’s largest economies, officials said Friday.
Merkel will visit Argentina on Thursday, the Argentine foreign minister confirmed, calling it “a sign of confidence” in President Mauricio Macri’s free-market reforms.
Topics will likely include efforts to seal a free trade deal between South American regional bloc Mercosur and the European Union.
Merkel will then visit Mexico on Friday and Saturday, the foreign ministry there confirmed.
She will be accompanied by “a major delegation of business executives, with the goal of broadening and strengthening the trade and investment ties between the two countries,” it said in a statement.
She will also meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto to “exchange views on the main issues on the international agenda,” it said.
Mexico is the second-largest economy in Latin America and Argentina is the third, both trailing Brazil.
Mexico in particular has been looking to strengthen trade relationships with countries other than the United States, its dominant trading partner, since US President Donald Trump took office.
Trump’s vows to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement — which he says has shipped American jobs south of the border — has made Mexico nervous about the future of its trade relationship with its northern neighbor, where it exported $294.2 billion in goods last year.
Merkel has meanwhile positioned herself as the anti-Trump, reaffirming Germany’s commitment to free trade.
Germany is Mexico’s largest trading partner in Europe, and fifth-largest in the world.
The two countries did $17.8 billion in trade last year.
