In mid-June, on the margins of the G7 France summit, Japanese premier Sanae Takaichi will tell Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, that Japan wishes to begin negotiating an economic partnership agreement with the Southern Common Market—or, Mercosur, the South American customs union comprised of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The overture to the South American trade bloc, confirmed in the last week of May by Japanese officials familiar with the plan, would be the first large-scale trade negotiation launched under Takaichi’s administration. 

The potential for Japan is enormous—not just for international trade, but also for buttressing its free-market economic mission at home. Composed of some 300 million people across the bulk of South America, the nations that form Mercosur have a combined GDP of $4.7 trillion as of 2025, which is marginally higher than Japan’s own GDP of $4.4 trillion.

Tokyo, according to Jiji Press, is moving to diversify its sources of critical minerals as it absorbs three simultaneous pressures: President Donald Trump’s high tariffs (a minimum of 15% for automotives, for example); China’s restrictions on rare-earth exports; and the ongoing impact of the Middle East crisis. While each factor on its own acts like a chokepoint, all of them act together to create a particular pressure on Japan’s already vulnerable critical minerals industry. Engaging with Mercosur, however, offers Japan a route out of this. 

The promise of access to the natural resources many Mercosur nations possess—Brazilian iron ore, Argentine and Bolivian lithium, Andean copper—will be a major appeal for........

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