LatinNews Daily - 20 March 2026

*Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, and the minister for mining and energy, Alexandre Silveira, have met with Paraguayan officials in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, to discuss financial arrangements for the binational Itaipú hydroelectric dam. Vieira and Silveira were hosted yesterday by Paraguay’s foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, in a meeting also attended by the Paraguayan government’s chief of staff Javier Giménez. Also yesterday, the Brazilian officials met with President Santiago Peña, who is due to travel to Campo Grande, the capital of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, on 22 March to continue the Itaipú negotiations with his Brazilian counterpart President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil and Paraguay are seeking to revise Annex C of the Itaipú Treaty, the section of the treaty concerning the terms, conditions, and rates under which each country can sell surplus electricity generated by the dam to each other. Both governments sought to finalise a revised version of Annex C last year but negotiations were hindered by diplomatic tensions last year, with the Paraguayan government suspending the talks in April following revelations in the press that under Brazil’s previous administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), Brazilian intelligence agents had conducted unauthorised surveillance on Paraguayan officials.

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