Trump, Bolsonaro could change political
map
President
Donald Trump's economic nationalism has seriously hurt U.S. ties with its
closest allies around the world, but it may result in an unprecedented alliance
with Brazil's right-wing populist government.
by Andres
Oppenheimer
Texarkana
Gazette, Sep. 9 2019 @
12:28am
President Donald
Trump's economic nationalism has seriously hurt U.S. ties with its closest
allies around the world, but it may result in an unprecedented alliance with
Brazil's right-wing populist government.
That could change
Latin America's political map.
In a Sept. 2 tweet,
Trump confirmed that he is negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, whom friends and foes call "Latin
America's Trump." Trump met with Brazilian foreign minister Ernesto Araujo
at the White House on Aug. 30 to move ahead with trade talks.
Judging from what
Araujo told me in an extended interview hours after the meeting, the two
governments are talking about a forging special relationship between the two
biggest economies of the Americas that would go beyond trade.
Washington and Brazil
want to "move forward with a very ambitious free-trade agreement, which
has been a dream for Brazil for many years, but had been hindered by
anti-American biases of previous (Brazilian) governments," Araujo told me.
"We are going to go ahead with that now."
Araujo added that,
"We have wasted many opportunities for cooperation in the past because of
the anti-American sentiment of former Brazilian leaders, which did not
correspond with the feelings of the bulk of Brazil's population."
Trump and Bolsonaro
"share a world vision," Araujo said. Over the past 30 years, there
has been a "progressive erosion of national sovereignty," caused by
ideas pushed by multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, he
added.
When I asked him if a
U.S.-Brazil trade deal would automatically result in Brazil's withdrawal from
Mercosur — the South American common market that includes Brazil, Argentina,
Paraguay and Uruguay — the foreign minister did not exclude that possibility.
Under Mercosur rules,
no member country can sign a bilateral trade deal with third parties without
the other bloc members' participation.
Araujo said that
Bolsonaro has already talked with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri about
relaxing Mercosur rules to allow a U.S.-Brazil trade deal. But he conceded that
a victory by Argentina's front-runner opposition candidate Alberto Fernandez in
the Oct. 27 elections would endanger Mercosur's existence.
Araujo said that
Fernandez, who has former leftist populist Argentine president Cristina
Fernandez de Kirchner as his running mate, is part of the "Sao Paulo
Forum, a group that coordinates leftist parties and anti-democratic projects in
Latin America."
"If a project
with that kind of vision wins in Argentina, that creates difficulties for
Mercosur, because Mercosur is not just a trade bloc but also a pro-democracy
bloc," Araujo told me. "We have a very clear and very strong
democracy clause in Mercosur."
If Trump is reelected,
and barring anything unforeseen in Brazil, we might see a new political map in
Latin America.
Brazil — Latin
America's biggest economy — could become Trump's top partner in the region, and
could effectively pull out of the Mercosur trade bloc.
That would among other
things pose huge problems for Argentina if Fernandez wins the elections there.
Brazil is Argentina's top export market, in part thanks to Mercosur's
preferential tariffs.
If a leftist
government in Argentina is left out of Mercosur, Argentina would have few
places to go for credit but China.
The best thing that
could happen would be for Brazil to lead its Mercosur partners to a regional
free-trade deal with the United States. The worst scenario would be that
Argentina, with nowhere else to go, becomes more China-dependent than ever,
much like Venezuela has in recent years.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário