Depois de Trump, Biden abre nova guerra comercial contra a China: isso não vai acabar bem - Jordan Schneider, Lily Ottinger (China Talk)

EMERGENCY POD: Sester on Biden's Electric Curtain

The IRA was the carrot. Here comes the stick. 

JORDAN SCHNEIDER AND LILY OTTINGER China Talk, MAY 15 The Biden administration has announced a slew of tariffs against China, including a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. What took so long? How did regulators decide what to tariff, and how much the tariffs would be? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed economist Brad Setser, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former economist in Biden’s USTR. We discuss: Whether the national security justification for tariffs on EVs makes sense; Why the Biden admin waited so long before imposing these tariffs; Whether the tariffs will unjustly protect low-quality American carmakers from healthy competition; How the policy response to today’s Chinese EV manufacturers differs from the response to Japanese automakers in the 1980s; How the different tariff percentages were chosen;  … and more! What is being tariffed and why? Jordan Schneider: Let’s start with a brief history of how we got here. What is the process that ended up concluding on May 14, 2024? Brad Setser: The process started with the imposition of Section 301 tariffs in the Trump administration. 301 is sort of like the US unilateral judge-and-jury tariff law. It states that if there's an undue burden on US commerce, then the US can impose tariffs that are meant to offset that undue burden.  The original 301 case was centered around technology transfer and IP theft, which led to a series of negotiations with China. China responded to the initial $50 billion of tariffs with their own $50 billion of tariffs, and then Trump responded with an ever-escalating and expanding set of tariffs. $50 billion became $250 billion, and then another $110 billion was added by the Trump administration. Trump granted some exclusions to these tariffs, and the Biden administration inherited an open question of what to do with these tariffs. There is also a statutory review of 301 tariffs after a four-year period.  Today, Biden announced the conclusion that some of the tariffs needed to be increased to better serve the goals of the original 301 case. Those goals include holding China to its commitments, which it didn't meet under the phase one agreement. Thus, what the Biden administration eventually concluded was that this review should change the structure of tariffs around a set of products that the Biden administration judged to be of strategic importance to America's future industrial development. Those areas also happen to generally be areas where China itself has had an active industrial policy. The net effect is, to a significant degree, fighting to fire with fire.  China has a pretty restrictive policy towards imports of electric vehicles and batteries. It doesn't need to be that restrictive because companies have become competitive. But when China’s EV and battery industry was getting started, China didn't let foreign producers’ imports qualify for its subsidies. China’s always had actually pretty high tariffs around the auto sector and solar ships. China built the first deep-sea floating solar plant off the coast of Shandong province in 2022. Source. China has clearly had industrial policies. These tariffs took on an aspect of responding to China's industrial policies in support of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. Biden’s goal is to make sure that an indigenous American electric vehicle and battery industry doesn't get overwhelmed by Chinese supply.  Jordan Schneider: I did a show way back in 2019 with Doug Irwin, who has a fascinating book about the political economy of tariffs. Tarriffs, taxes, and trade: Doug Irwin on ChinaEconTalk Jordan Schneider Episode Clearly, some of these industries have real political salience. The Detroit automakers in 2008 were prominent enough to get a bailout. But this also includes tariffs on some novel things –  such as lagging edge semiconductors, shipped-ashore cranes, syringes, and needles – which don’t appear to be motivated by a protectionist impulse to save unproductive jobs.  Instead, the Biden administration has decided that dependence on China is a national security issue that needs rectifying, and his solution is to use trade barriers as well as subsidies and industrial policy.  Brad Setser: That's right. In manufacturing, China is now a superpower. 30% to 33% of global manufacturing is in China, which is 15% to 20% of the global economy. China is a superpower. The US has gone through three phases in its response to the challenge created by China's emergence as the world's greatest manufacturing power. The first phase was a dominant sense that China's emergence as a manufacturer was complementary to the US economy. This was the idea that US companies could get cheap inputs and make certain consumer goods at a lower cost, which would be good for the US economy. This idea assumed that over time, a wealthier China would be a growing market for things like solar cells, aircraft, semiconductors, and patent-protected pharmaceuticals, which the US economy stood to benefit from also. The second phase was a recognition that the organic development of China's economy and its manufacturing power wasn't simply complimentary, and that in some specific sectors, telecommunications equipment being the obvious one, Chinese firms were emerging as potent competitors and they were doing so with a certain element of state backing. Huawei wasn't state-owned, but Huawei got plenty of support through contracts inside China from the state, telcos, a lot of support when it's going out and exporting, and a lot of subsidies for the development of its chip business. There was a hope that through negotiation you could convince China to change its ways, to back away from certain industrial policy practices, to liberalize, to go back to reform and opening up. Upgrade to paid Now we're in a third phase where no one expects China to reform and open up. We are now responding with our own industrial policies. We're not going to abandon sectors just because China has used state resources to prioritize them and built up capacity. We're trying to develop those sectors ourselves, and we're using both money and border restrictions to achieve that goal. Jordan Schneider: This gets at one of the things that is a sort of pet peeve for me. When Biden talks about trade policy, he says things such as, “American workers and businesses can out-compete anyone as long as they have fair competition.” Well, I'm sorry, but “fair” doesn't have a lot to do with it. China's actually really good at making stuff now. The concern I have is that this mindset doesn't internalize the fact that America is can lose because of domestic political decisions.  US failure on EVs isn’t simply a downstream consequence of the fact that BYD got some undermarket loans back in 2015. There are clear firm dynamics and regulatory dynamics that have made the EV rollout in the US a lot less successful. Both Western and East Asian carmakers are less capable of producing vehicles at the quality and price that China is offering.  I worry that there is actually a skill issue, and tariffs will just get us into the same position we’re in with US steel. Is the Biden administration just buying time for GM to make poor-quality cars? Could there be potential benefits to forcing US automakers to out-compete BYD in the US?  Brad Setser: Competition can strengthen you because you have to emerge as the best form of yourself. College basketball coaches want to have tough games to prepare themselves for the tournament for a reason. But competition can also wipe out your industry.  If competition risks killing the US EV industry, making us totally reliant on China, then that competition isn't a helpful strategy for making a strong, competitive domestic industry either. There was, to a degree, a risk that Chinese supply would come to dominate the US market. This isn’t just about BYD – Tesla's economic dynamics made them decide to produce cars in China for sale in the US market. GM and GM's partners could produce EVs in China for sale to the US. Same with Ford. That would not strengthen our own capacity to make our own EVs. It might help GM and Ford survive as brands, but it wouldn't bring that technology nor that expertise into the US.  I share the Biden administration's judgment that there was a real risk that the end result of open competition would have been the transfer of the whole industry to China, not a stronger US industry.  Next, I don't think it is quite right to either say “China's industry has only emerged because of the subsidies,” or to conversely make the argument that “China's industry just reflects the strategic and technological prowess of a few Chinese firms, which is why we should welcome them into our markets so that we can learn from them.”  The history is much more complex. Some of China's early EVs were not great. They clearly were benefiting from subsidies. There were a lot of subsidies thrown into the development of both batteries and the supply chain for minerals that eventually become batteries.  This was a conscious, strategic decision to shift to EVs, in part because China wanted to shake up the industry because Chinese brands weren't succeeding at building conventional combustion vehicles. There are cases where failed EV manufacturers in China are resurrected with investments from Three Gorges, which is a power company in the local province, which is hardly this story of great innovation leading to winning the market.  All that said, the EV industry drew on China’s existing manufacturing skill set – making an EV is analogous to producing high-quality electric machinery or appliances. EVs and cell phones are both powered by the same underlying battery technology.  But I also don't think it is fair to say that the Chinese government played no role in this. The reality is that it was a government policy that was very successful at nurturing these very efficient and innovative firms that we are now seeing today.  Jordan Schneider: For a deep dive on that specific topic, check out our show with John Helvaston, who wrote a number of papers exploring the interaction between the Chinese EV and the state sector in great detail.  Why Chinese EVs Will Take Over the World Jordan Schneider Episode Are these tariffs unprecedented, or just a repeat of the 1980s?  Jordan Schneider: Let's talk about the potential resolution of this. We're up to 100% tariffs if you are importing directly from China, which basically means that there are not going to be cars imported directly from China. Interestingly, the US hit the same roadblock in the 1980s with Japanese and Korean automakers. The compromise that American policymakers landed on was to accept foreign car brands as long as they were manufactured in Mississippi, for example. Now we have a lot of Hyundai and Toyota factories in the US. It seems like that is not necessarily going to happen with BYD.  What's your take on whether such a resolution might be applicable in today’s EV market? Brad Setser: Well, just as an observation, I think the history of the eighties is actually not very helpful. There are obvious differences. One difference is that Korea, Japan, and Europe are allies. Second, the incentives didn't just come from tariffs, they came from a big adjustment in the dollar. Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes set up shop here because they actually had an economic incentive to invest and build out their US supply chain.  By the way, in the US we still import a meaningful number of cars from Japan, Korea, and Germany. We are still the biggest market in the world for imported cars by far. We shouldn't forget that. But the third thing is that, in the 1980s we weren't in a world of smart cars and the internet of things. A self-driving car is a surveillance camera on steroids connected to the global ether. There's massive computing power processing all the images and telling that computer how to process all the information it is receiving. There's a surveillance angle that didn't exist in the 1980s. I don't think we are so far behind the Chinese carmakers. I wouldn't go so far as to say we need to import all the technical know-how from China. Tesla’s leadership has maybe spent too much time pursuing extracurriculars, but Tesla knows how to make competitive electric cars, no question about it. I actually don't think GM is that far behind either. They just went a different route. They went for costly builds because they wanted to build electric substitutes for their money-making models, which are their heavier pickups and SUVs. Hyundai, which is going to produce in the US, has already built a pretty significant business with a broader range of electric vehicles.  China’s vehicles are available at a much lower price point — that’s what makes them competitive. But they are cheap because the yuan is weak and because there hasn't been much upward pressure on wages in China. And in some cases Chinese manufacturers, because the domestic market has been very competitive, have just abandoned performance and went for a luxury vehicle experience where you're driven around in a home entertainment system. We could probably do the same thing. The question is whether there's a market for it. I'm not as pessimistic as some. I do think we are going to import some of China's battery technology through licensing arrangements, and I think that's fine. The harder questions will arise when we confront the technology for self-driving and AI-powered cars. You can get some pretty scary national security scenarios when all those cars are connected to computers run out of Beijing.  Jordan Schneider: Well, in any industry you can come up with a national security rationale for wanting to have domestic production. The question is — how important is it and how much are you willing to pay? The cost for now is that we're basically going to have a bifurcated car industry for the foreseeable future. Brad Setser: I guess I agree it's a big decision, but just for the record — we've already had a bifurcated car industry. Cars for the US market were made in the US, Korea, and Japan. Cars for the Chinese market were made in China. The Chinese market has a very low import penetration and used to have almost no exports. It was self contained in part because of the joint venture requirements of that industry.  The question was whether we were going to have an integrated market that included China. We have not in the past. But the decision not to integrate our auto markets at this point when China's auto sector is genuinely innovative and genuinely competitive is a consequential one. Jordan Schneider: One industry where the trade is not going to be zeroed out by these new tariffs is batteries. There’s a 25% increase for lithium-ion EV batteries and a 25% increase in 2026 for non-EV lithium-ion batteries. What's going on here, Brad?  Brad Setser: Well, weirdly, the Trump battery tariffs were inconsistent. There was a 25% tariff on EV battery cells for cars and a 7.5% tariff on EV battery packs, which led to some pretty significant imports of EV battery packs. If you look at dollar figures, the tariff on EV batteries is the biggest one because a large unnamed American electric vehicle producer is relying more and more on Chinese battery packs.  Source. If you want an independent battery industry and an independent battery supply chain, these restrictions are necessary because there is so much potential capacity coming out of China. We want a battery industry. Simple. We're spending a lot of money on it with the IRA, and we wanted to make sure there was a demand for all the capacity that the US is trying to build.  What’s the difference between a 100% tariff and a 200% tariff? Are the percentages just darts at a wall? Jordan Schneider: It strikes me that all of these are round numbers – hopefully there was some sophisticated analysis that went into picking these percentages — is that the case? Brad Setser: It's not a secret that the 301 tariff lists were initially created to hit a dollar amount that Trump wanted.  For the 301 tariffs, which are basically punitive, you can't calculate the tariff level based on an estimate of damages. Hence, why make anyone's life more complicated with something that is not a simple round number? The general rule of thumb is that for every percentage point you increase, the tariff trade falls by 2%. A 25% tariff should lead to a 50% fall on your imports. A 50% tariff should be prohibitive. If it's not, that tells you something. And then when you go from 50% to 100%, you're making a point. The point is — we don't want to be dependent on China for electric vehicles. All these calculations end up being arbitrary, but with an anti-dumping duty or a CVD counter-subsidy duty, there is pressure to be overly precise in calculating the offset in damages. In reality, no model is clear enough to recommend an 8.9% tariff. Conversely, in the 301 space, because the structure is tied to an undue burden on US commerce, it's an offset to Chinese retaliation, and it’s been modified over time – there's no point in trying to have a decimal point estimate because that is not the basis for this kind of tariff action. Do we really need 100%, or is that just a political statement? 50% should be prohibitive. For some sectors, 50% may not be prohibitive because Chinese battery producers are really quite competitive, but they also don't qualify for IRA incentives.  Then, for some other sectors, like legacy chips, the tariff actually doesn't matter that much, because most legacy chips aren't imported as chips, they're imported as part of a final product. Solar is also performative because the US imports a lot of Chinese solar content through Southeast Asia. We import wafers and cells that are put into panels in Southeast Asia.  It doesn't really matter what the tariff is if the product is already tariffed out the wazoo. Jordan Schneider: Fair enough. You know, Trump said today that his plan is to make the tariff 200%.  Brad Setser: Ha, Biden should have countered with 400%. Why not, right?

 

A questão palestina - Rubens Barbosa (Estadão)

 A QUESTÃO PALESTINA

Rubens Barbosa

O Estado de S. Paulo, 13/02/2024

       

        Continua a crescer a pressão da opinião pública mundial por uma solução a médio e longo prazo para a dramática situação no Oriente Médio, a fim de evitar a escalada do conflito entre Israel e Hamas e de buscar um entendimento que permita a estabilização política, econômica e militar na região.

       Os altos custos do apoio militar para a Ucrânia e a aproximação da eleição presidencial nos EUA, com forte impacto negativo à candidatura de Biden, são agravados, no curto prazo, pela multiplicação dos incidentes militares, com o risco da situação sair do controle, e pela necessidade de garantir a segurança de Israel e a viabilização do Estado Palestino.

        Com esse pano de fundo, o governo de Washington lançou um balão de ensaio com o vazamento de um esboço de proposta por meio de comentários no New York Times e no The Economist, com grande repercussão.

        Segundo se noticia, estaria havendo conversas sigilosas no sentido de viabilizar um amplo plano de paz - hoje de difícil aceitação por todas as partes envolvidas -, mas que poderá, com concessões de todos, tornar possível vislumbrar uma luz no fim do túnel, caso a posição do governo norte-americano se mantenha firme e os entendimentos se intensifiquem.

        Assim, a política dos EUA em relação a região parece estar evoluindo. O presidente Biden anunciou inéditas sanções contra colonos israelenses que promovem violência contra palestinos na Cisjordânia. Thomas Friedman, no New York Times, prevê uma nova “Doutrina Biden” para o Oriente Médio. As linhas principais dessa nova política americana passariam por uma atitude firme em relação ao Irã, por uma forte pressão sobre Israel, para que aceite a criação de um Estado Palestino, e pelo fortalecimento da aliança com a Arábia Saudita, que reconheceria diplomaticamente Israel. The Economist acrescenta que, em meio a intensa ação diplomática, lideradas pelos EUA e Arábia Saudita, o plano estaria tomando forma, a partir das negociações para a liberação dos reféns em poder do Hamas, (Netanyahu recusou a  última proposta do Hamas), para modificar a política interna israelense e permitir a possibilidade de criação do Estado Palestino.

        O primeiro passo seria uma posição dura em relação ao Irã, incluindo uma retaliação militar robusta contra aliados e agentes do Irã na região (Houthis, ISIS e outros grupos) em resposta às mortes dos três soldados americanos em uma base na Jordânia, por um drone aparentemente lançado por uma milícia pró-Irã ativa no Iraque. O segundo eixo consistiria em uma iniciativa diplomática sem precedentes, para promover um Estado palestino, que envolveria alguma forma de reconhecimento pelos EUA de um Estado palestino desmilitarizado na Cisjordânia e na Faixa de Gaza, que passaria a existir somente depois que os palestinos tivessem desenvolvido um arcabouço de instituições definidas e críveis, assim como capacidades de garantir que esse Estado seja viável e incapaz de ameaçar Israel. O governo norte-americano estaria mantendo consultas dentro e fora do governo americano a respeito das diferentes formas que esse reconhecimento do estatuto de Estado dos palestinos poderia assumir. O terceiro eixo seria uma aliança de segurança ampliada dos EUA com a Arábia Saudita que também envolveria a normalização das relações dos sauditas com Israel, com reconhecimento mútuo e com garantias de segurança respaldadas pelo governo norte-americano. Seria a retomada dos entendimentos entre a Arabia Saudita e Israel (acordo de Abraão) para o reconhecimento do Estado de Israel, se o governo israelense estiver preparado para aceitar um processo diplomático que leve a criação de um Estado palestino desmilitarizado, liderado por uma Autoridade Palestina fortalecida.

       A primeira fase está em curso com os ataques dos EUA aos grupos terroristas no Iraque, na Síria e no Yemen. Como nem os EUA, nem o Irã, nem os países do Golfo querem uma escalada da guerra na região, a fase inicial teria de ser concluída com o controle dos grupos terroristas financiados por Teerã. As conversas reservadas entre EUA, Arabia Saudita, Irã e Israel mostrarão se as duas etapas seguintes da estratégia serão viáveis a médio prazo.

         O ataque terrorista de 7 de outubro contra Israel e seus desdobramentos estão forçando uma reformulação fundamental na maneira como a questão do Oriente Médio deve ser tratada. Se vencer as resistências, a Doutrina Biden produzirá um equilíbrio geopolítico e políticas domésticas mais seguras. Essa estratégia poderia dissuadir o Irã, tanto militarmente, quanto politicamente, ao tirar a carta palestina de Teerã. Poderia promover o estatuto do Estado palestino em termos consistentes com a segurança israelense e, simultaneamente, criar condições para a normalização das relações entre Israel e Arábia Saudita, em termos que os palestinos possam aceitar. Mas para que a questão seja bem-sucedida é indispensável que esses três eixos estejam assegurados e interconectados. O plano promete uma nova arquitetura econômica e de segurança no Oriente Médio. Essa estratégia poderia se tornar o maior realinhamento estratégico na região desde o tratado de 1979 em Camp David.

 

Rubens Barbosa, ex-embaixador em Washington, presidente do Instituto de Relações Internacionais e Comércio Exterior (IRICE) e membro da Academia Paulista de Letras

       

Ucrânia: haverá invasão russa, haverá guerra na Europa central? Uma entrevista-debate com Felipe Loureiro (Canal MyNews)

 Um debate sobre um tema do momento: 

1435. “Guerra Rússia vs. Ucrânia; alerta de Biden”, Participação em entrevista no Canal MyNews, com a jornalista Myrian Clark, na companhia do professor Felipe Loureiro, do IRI-USP (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlupXkI31Uw; 20/02/2022; 12:00hs; 52mns). Sem original.

Felipe Loureiro e eu concordamos em muitas coisas em nosso debate-entrevista; a principal parece ser esta: Putin quer fazer da Ucrânia uma Belarus. Mas Ucrânia e Belarus vão fazer parte da UE em menos de dez anos. Não precisam aderir à OTAN, nem é desejável. Posso apostar…

A última notícia do ano de 2021 é também a primeira de 2022: ameaça de invasão da Ucrânia pela Rússia

 Biden e Putin alertam para rompimento de relações

Folha de S.Paulo | Mundo

31 de dezembro de 2021

Presidente dos EUA, Joe Biden, fala ao telefone com mandatário da Rússia, Vladimir Putin Adam Schuw/Casa Branca/Reuters
Por telefone, líderes mantiveram tom incisivo em meio a tensões na Ucrânia
WILMINGTON (DELAWARE) E MOSCOU | Reuters 

Em meio ao aumento das tensões em torno da Ucrânia, os presidentes dos Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, e da Rússia, Vladimir Putin, conversaram por telefone nesta quinta-feira (30) e alertaram para um possível rompimento na relação entre os dois países em decorrência da da escalada de ânimos no leste europeu.

EUA e Rússia passam por um dos momentos de maior tensão da história recente depois que Kiev e Washington acusaram Moscou de planejar um ataque contra a Ucrânia após posicionar dezenas de milhares de soldados próximos à fronteira da ex-república soviética. Na ligação, que durou 50 minutos, Biden "deixou claro que os EUAe seusaliadose parceiros responderão de forma decisiva se a Rússia avançar na invasão da Ucrânia", informou a Casa Branca, por meio de um comunicado.

A Rússia anexou em 2014 a península da Crimeia, em resposta a uma revolução pró-Ocidente, que derrubou um presidente alinhado ao Kremlin. Os russos também são acusados de apoiar separatistas ucranianos que lutam contra o governo de Kiev no leste do país. Biden voltou a ameaçar a Rússia com sanções econômicas em caso de ataque, o que Putin chamou de "um erro colossal".

"Nosso presidente respondeu imediatamente [à ameaça] que se o Ocidente decidir, nesta ou em outras circunstâncias, impor estas sanções sem precedentes que foram mencionadas então, isso poderia levar a um rompimento total dos laços entre nossos países e causar o dano mais sério para relações entre a Rússia e o Ocidente ", disse assessor do Kremlin, Iuri Ushakov.

Apesar das tensões de ambos os lados, Ushakov disse a repórteres que o Kremlin estava satisfeito com a conversa e que os os dois líderes pareciam prontos para avançar diplomaticamente.

Moscou nega que esteja preparando uma invasão à Ucrânia, apesar da movimentação militar na fronteira. "Esta não é a nossa escolha [preferida], não queremos isso", disse Putin na semana passada. A Rússia alega que tem direito de mover suas tropas como quiser em seu território.

O Kremlin, porém, não descarta uma resposta militar se a Otan (Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte), à qual a Ucrânia deseja se integrar, persistir com sua expansão para o leste. O presidente russo ameaçou adotar medidas "militares e técnicas" caso suas reivindicações não sejam atendidas.

Putin quer garantias de segurança no leste europeu por parte do Ocidente, o que foi mencionado no telefonema nesta quinta. Segundo o Kremlin, Biden concordou que Moscou precisa de tais garantias para avançar nas negociações, mesmo que ainda haja diferenças entre os dois países.

As tensões com Kiev levaram as relações Leste-Oeste ao seu pior momento nas três décadas desde o colapso da União Soviética. 

Itamaraty espera que Biden entenda posições de Bolsonaro (claro, a obrigação é de Biden) - Valor Economico

 Itamaraty espera que Biden entenda posições de Bolsonaro

Governo brasileiro não vai mudar suas convicções em função da nova liderança nos EUA, sinaliza Ernesto Araújo em entrevista

Valor Econômico | 15/1/2021, 12h20

O governo de Jair Bolsonaro, que apoiou tanto Donald Trump quanto seus principais ideais, tem um recado para o presidente eleito Joe Biden: o Brasil não vai mudar suas posições em função da nova liderança nos Estados Unidos.

Pelo contrário, o governo brasileiro espera que Biden entenda que Brasil e Estados Unidos têm muitos interesses comuns, que Biden entenda que Brasil e Estados Unidos têm muitos interesses comuns, que incluem a promoção da democracia e da segurança na América Latina, e não estão em lados opostos em relação ao meio ambiente, disse o ministro de Relações Exteriores, Ernesto Araújo.

“A gente espera muito, por parte da nova administração americana, que o nosso governo seja percebido pelo que ele é realmente, por aquilo que o povo brasileiro é e pretende”, disse Araújo em entrevista em seu gabinete em Brasília na quinta-feira (14). “Os dois lados precisam fazer um esforço de compreensão mútua.”

A sintonia fluiu facilmente com Trump não apenas por conta da amizade com Bolsonaro, mas também porque o presidente dos EUA entendeu que os brasileiros fizeram uma escolha ao elegê-lo, disse Araújo. Em troca do alinhamento do Brasil com as posições dos EUA, Trump pôs fim à proibição das importações de carne in natura brasileira, apoiou a candidatura do país para ingressar na Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) e assinou acordos de cooperação em defesa e exploração espacial.

O comércio bilateral do Brasil com os EUA é maior do que com qualquer outro país, exceto a China. No entanto, Bolsonaro tem estado em rota de colisão com Biden desde que o presidente eleito ameaçou o governo brasileiro, durante debate de campanha, com “consequências econômicas significativas” se o Brasil não se empenhar em preservar a Amazônia.

Pessoas a par dos planos de Biden disseram em dezembro que o presidente eleito pretende liderar uma frente unida do Ocidente para pressionar Bolsonaro a adotar políticas ambientais que contenham os incêndios que destroem a Amazônia.

No entanto, Araújo disse que as preocupações ambientais são exageradas pela mídia local e internacional. O chanceler insistiu que o Brasil continua no Acordo de Paris e fez uma oferta importante para antecipar a meta de neutralidade em carbono em troca de US$ 10 bilhões por ano de países em desenvolvimento. Segundo o ministro, com os EUA prestes a aderirem novamente ao acordo global, haverá mais dinheiro na mesa para esses pagamentos.

Conservadores silenciados

Bolsonaro apoiou publicamente a candidatura de Trump e foi um dos últimos líderes mundiais a parabenizar Biden por sua vitória. Na semana passada, enquanto seguidores de Trump invadiam o Capitólio, Bolsonaro repetia alegações de que houve “muita fraude” nas eleições dos EUA, bem como durante sua própria eleição em 2018 que, segundo ele, deveria ter vencido no primeiro turno.

Araújo não quis comentar as acusações de fraude, mas disse que questionamentos sobre os sistemas de votação nos EUA, Brasil e outros países são legítimos e devem ser investigados. Ele condenou a violência em Washington na semana passada, mas advertiu que isso não pode ser usado como desculpa para calar as vozes conservadoras ao redor do mundo.

“Assim como nada justifica a invasão, nada justifica o cerceamento da liberdade de expressão, que é um valor democrático tão importante quanto a integridade física”, disse, criticando a decisão do Twitter de banir Trump da plataforma e acusando a empresa de remover milhares de seus seguidores sem um motivo claro”. 

“Surgiu um clima de caça às bruxas”, disse Araújo.

O ministro não descartou a possibilidade de que o tipo de protesto visto em Washington aconteça em outros países, inclusive na eleição presidencial de 2022 no Brasil.

“Se as pessoas se sentirem sufocadas na sua capacidade de falar e de ouvir, qualquer país pode ter problemas sérios”, afirmou.

https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2021/01/15/itamaraty-espera-que-biden-entenda-posicoes-de-bolsonaro.ghtml

"I love you Trump" perde o seu objeto: Bolsonaro ainda insiste na resistência a Biden - Frederic Puglie (Washington Times)

 Newfound flexibility? Defiant Bolsonaro not rushing to embrace Biden

By Frederic Puglie - Special to The Washington Times 

Thursday, November 26, 2020

In the wee hours of election night Nov. 3, the president’s son tweeted a screenshot of Michigan vote totals purporting to show a sudden jump in favor of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.

“Strange,” he noted ironically.

But what may sound like Donald Trump Jr. in truth came from Eduardo Bolsonaro, the congressman and third son of a man who has long and enthusiastically embraced his “Trump of the Tropics” moniker: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Several foreign leaders who forged strong personal bonds with President Trump — including Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — over the past four years face challenges adjusting to the prospect of a Biden administration. But nowhere may the whiplash be as severe as in Brasilia.

Having openly endorsed President Trump’s bid for reelection, the leader of South America’s largest and most populous nation now finds himself having to deal with a man he all but called a danger to his country as recently as two weeks ago — and one who has had some pointed criticisms of the populist Brazilian leader to boot.

“We heard a great candidate for head of state say that if I don’t put out the fire in the Amazon, he’ll put up trade barriers against Brazil. How can we react to all that?” Mr. Bolsonaro said on Nov. 10.

“Diplomacy alone won’t do,” he cautioned. “When you’re out of spit, you need gunpowder.”

The remark was but the latest sign the confrontational Mr. Bolsonaro sees no immediate intent to ingratiate himself with Mr. Biden, who had threatened the former army captain with “significant economic consequences” should he refuse to “stop tearing down the forest” in exchange for a $20 billion payment.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Bolsonaro is one of the last major holdouts who has yet to formally acknowledge Mr. Biden’s apparent electoral victory, so long as his friend Mr. Trump refuses to formally concede the race.

But also characteristically, Mr. Bolsonaro’s defiance is not so much about alienating Mr. Biden or placating Mr. Trump as it is about promoting none other than Mr. Bolsonaro, said Ambassador Paulo Roberto de Almeida, a former director of the IPRI think tank at Brazil’s foreign ministry.

“He must know that Trump lost and that Joe Biden will be the next president,” Mr. de Almeida said. “But since he embodied this ‘anti-multilateralist, anti-globalist, pro-American, anti-Chinese, anti-communist and so on’ position, he sticks to it.”

And while Mr. Bolsonaro’s refusal so far to congratulate — much less offer to work with — Mr. Bidenmay unnerve Brazil’s foreign policy establishment, his inner circle continues to egg him on, Mr. de Almeida added.

“Bolsonaro depends on his immediate advisers: [foreign policy adviser] Filipe Martins; son No. 3, Eduardo Bolsonaro; and Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo,” he detailed. “Those three kept Bolsonaro from ending [his] silence about the [Biden] victory.”

And little suggests Mr. Bolsonaro is about to turn into a second Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s leftist president who — despite his political leanings — was able to forge an unexpectedly respectful and productive relationship with Mr. Trump, his ideological opposite.

Mr. Bolsonaro “doesn’t seem like he’s really ready to backtrack and find ways of working with Biden,” said Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. “In part, it’s [because] Brazil is certainly less dependent on the United States than Mexico.”

Running in 2022

In the medium term, then, the fate of Washington-Brasilia relations may well depend on what Mr. Bolsonaro concludes is his best campaign strategy to win a second term two years from now.

“Whatever he does with regard to relations with the United States — what he looks for in the United States — will be in reference to his [reelection],” Mr. Hakim cautioned.

The Brazilian president, who has remained buoyant in the polls despite the country’s devastating fight with the coronavirus, has shown a tactical ability to be flexible on the policy front.

Having initially championed his Economy Minister Paulo Guedes’s pro-market fiscal conservatism, Mr. Bolsonaro this year switched course to allow for generous government handouts amid the coronavirus pandemic — one big reason, analysts say, for an unprecedented bump in his approval numbers.

“After a blustery, Trump-like start that he is going to make these huge changes in the way Brazilfunctions and he’s not going to follow the rules,” Mr. Hakim quipped, “he has [now] recognized the value of getting something done.”

And though the Nov. 15 first round of municipal elections saw Bolsonaro-backed candidates lose key mayoral races, the overall success of center-right forces, ironically, turned out to be good news.

“In truth, he gained strength,” Brasilia-based political consultant Vera Galante noted. “He ends up strengthened in Congress, and also in the states, even though his candidates were defeated.”

Which version of Mr. Bolsonaro — the 2019 ideologue or the 2020 pragmatist — will show up for the 2022 campaign, then, is, more than ever, anybody’s guess.

“He has a real dilemma facing him,” Mr. Hakim said. “Does he use his populist strongman approach? … Or is the best to try to get the economy going again? He would like to do both, but there are trade-offs there for him.”

The dilemma is real, political scientist Lucas de Abreu Maia agreed. But economic realities will ultimately force Mr. Bolsonaro’s hand, the former O Estado de S. Paulo reporter added.

“He is in a very tough position, actually, because he has to please his domestic audience — but the Brazilian economy cannot afford to have anything but [a] good relationship with the U.S.,” Mr. de Abreu Maia said. “Brazil needs the U.S. a lot more than the U.S. needs Brazil.”

And plenty of influential forces will be pushing Mr. Bolsonaro to at least try to mend fences with his new American counterpart, Mr. Hakim said.

“The agricultural lobby, the business community and the military — and even many of the evangelicals,” he said, “are going to press him to find a way to patch up relations with Biden.”

To do that, though, all roads lead back to the Amazon, whose deforestation pits Mr. Bolsonaro’s trademark talking points — sovereignty, national pride, development — against Mr. Biden’s assertion of an “existential threat” from climate change and his determination to make climate change a centerpiece of U.S. economic and foreign policy.

“Trade relations, trade negotiations, trade agreements,” Mr. Hakim enumerated, “are going to be very hard for Brazil to secure without a real reversal on Bolsonaro’s Amazon policy.”

In fact, Mr. Biden’s mention of the Amazon in the first presidential debate was the first time he had seen a purportedly domestic issue come up so prominently in a foreign campaign, economist Marcio Pochmann said.

“The Amazon issue, in truth, is an international debate,” said Mr. Pochmann, the former president of the Perseu Abramo Foundation linked to the opposition Workers’ Party.

About-face?

And given Mr. Bolsonaro’s newfound flexibility on a variety of issues, another about-face is certainly within the realm of the possible, he suggested.

“I wouldn’t rule out Bolsonaro changing positions” on the international scene, Mr. Pochmann said.

Getting along with Mr. Biden could certainly help Brasilia stay at the top of the South American pecking order, Ms. Galante suggested.

“President Bolsonaro will want to re-establish [Brazilian] hegemony in the region, and for that he needs the United States,” she said.

But any “flexibility” could easily cut both ways, Mr. Pochmann cautioned, pointing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conspicuous display of camaraderie toward Mr. Bolsonaro at last week’s virtual BRICS summit of major emerging economies.

And if anything, the former congressman — who during his 20-year career in politics has switched party allegiances no fewer than eight times — has a history of digging in, not dropping out.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s animosity toward Argentine President Alberto Fernandez — by all accounts mutual — seems to have survived countless attempts at reconciliation. And his jabs against China have already cost Brazil dearly, Mr. de Almeida said. At the BRICS summit — a loose grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — Beijing quietly withdrew its longstanding endorsement of an expanded role for Brasilia at the United Nations.

A telltale sign of what course Mr. Bolsonaro wants to take toward the Biden administration, analysts agreed, will likely be the fate of Mr. Araujo, his foreign minister.

A changing of the guard at the ministry’s famed Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia could come around Mr. Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration and would signal Mr. Bolsonaro’s desire for a new beginning, Mr. de Almeida said.

“I would pay close attention to the Itamaraty,” Ms. Galante agreed, “because he could use this opportunity.”

But foreign policy and self-interest aside, embracing Mr. Biden will not come easy to Mr. Bolsonaro, who modeled much of his political success — his stunning 2018 electoral victory, his jabs at “fake-news” media, his Twitter tirades — on the Donald Trump model.

“He embodied this ‘Trumpist’ position not because he was Trump’s friend — he isn’t — [but because] he is Trump’s admirer,” Mr. de Almeida said.

“To the extent that either follows a playbook, Bolsonaro has been following Trump‘s,” Mr. de Abreu Maia said. “It’s going to be harder for [Mr. Bolsonaro] to win reelection without having really an inspiration — really a playbook to follow.”

O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro: o cronista misterioso sobre a vitoria de Joe Biden

 [Nota PRA: Uma curta nota do cronista misterioso para antecipar a previsível vitória do Joe Biden, mas não sei quando exatamente foi composta esta nota; nenhuma delas tem data de calendário e eu apenas recebo tardiamente esses petardos bem humorados (quase sempre). Em todo caso, o Trump é pior que um dragão da maldade, pois ele ainda não foi preso, o que pode ocorrer, assim como para a famiglia muy amiga, que também perpetra suas pequenas e grandes falcatruas. Em todo caso, o chanceler acidental está ficando órfão, de pelo menos um dos seus chefes, talvez o principal...]

O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro (Semana 27)

Não sou muito afeito a futurologia, mas hei de me aventurar pela seara das moiras e farei uma previsão. O ex-vice-presidente americano, Joe Biden, sairá vitorioso da batalha contra o grande dragão vermelho (como saiu vitorioso Lincoln da batalha contra os Grand Dragons originais da Ku Klux Klan). 

Não significa, é claro, que adentraremos uma nova era de progresso e paz, mas significa, ao menos, que o Fog of war de fake news e anti-iluminismo, que a alt-right criou, tenderá a dissipar-se. 

Assim como no clássico de Glauber Rocha, de quem roubo o título desta crônica, lançado há mais de 50 anos, não há heróis claros nessa luta, mas, ao fim, o ódio que o grande dragão vermelho da maldade representa será vencido. Está decretado o fim da indivina trindade que Ernesto coloca em seu altar de cristão herege: Trump, Bolsonaro e o “Deus de Trump”.

Apesar de nosso ministro parlapatão e da aura de insensatez e delírio que ainda emana de nosso palácio, o novo sempre vem.

E amanhã vai ser outro dia.

Ministro Ereto da Brocha, OMBUDSMAN