Reasons For An Argentina-Brazil Currency Union
Even before German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met newly re-elected President Lula da Silva in Brasília last week, the latter had visited neighbouring Argentina, where he floated the idea of creating a common currency union for the two countries.
The international response? Shaking heads. “It’s a terrible idea,” tweeted Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics. In the German weekly Die Zeit, Thomas Fischermann wrote about a “dream money of the South.” So, was the announcement of a common currency for southern Latin America just talk?
A monetary union of all of Latin America would cover 5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) – in comparison with the euro’s 14 percent, estimates the Financial Times.