Mercosur’s end‑of‑year summit in Foz do Iguaçu exposed a sharp regional split over Venezuela, democracy, and the continent’s economic future, with Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva staking out opposing visions. Milei denounced Nicolás Maduro’s government as an “atrocious and inhumane dictatorship” and a “narco‑terrorist” regime, urged stronger pressure from the United States and President Donald Trump to “free the Venezuelan people,” and celebrated Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado as the legitimate expression of popular will. Lula, by contrast, warned that any armed intervention in Venezuela would be a “humanitarian disaster” and a dangerous global precedent, insisting that South America must resist extra‑regional military presence even as it defends democracy.
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