Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Mexico and the European Union update their trade agreement, a Brazilian drug gang travels to Ukraine to get smart on drones, and exiled Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado plans her return.
Top European Union officials were in Mexico City last Friday for the first EU-Mexico summit in more than a decade. They left with something to show for it, signing an expanded free trade agreement expected to be ratified by both sides in the coming months. It comes on the heels of an EU trade deal with South American customs union Mercosur that took provisional effect earlier this year.
The original EU-Mexico deal covered only industrial goods, but the updated pact adds services and farm produce. It also includes measures to ease cross-border investments and allow European companies to bid for some Mexican government contracts.
The EU will additionally mobilize around $5.8 billion in investments in Mexico that are aligned with President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Plan Mexico economic development strategy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
