Recent disputes between Brazil and Argentina shed light on the current progress of regional integration in South America.  At the beginning of the month, Argentina suspended the licensesof the Argentine subsidiary of Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run energy company.  Argentina enacted similar measures against the Spanish-controlled energy company YPF. The Argentinian government accuses the energy companies of not investing enough of their profits back into the local energy sector.

This comes in the aftermath of several other disputes and issues between Argentina and Brazil. For example, in March of this year, the Brazilian-based beef producer JBS shut down five of its six slaughterhouses in Argentina due to government restrictions on exports. And in 2011, the two nations argued over import licenses after Argentina did away with automatic import licenses for Brazil. In retaliation, Brazil threw out automatic import licenses of Argentinian car imports. Considering that 80% of Argentinian vehicles and…