Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;
“Brasil deixou seu status na OMC para se agarrar a uma sinalização na OCDE. Não é prudente”
Cientista político do Insper Leandro Consentino diz que Brasil perde trunfos por negociações na OCDE e que equipe econômica ainda precisa mostrar resultados
Professor de Ciência Política no Insper e especialista em relações internacionais, Leandro Consentino acredita que a falta de apoio endosso formal e imediato dos Estados Unidos à campanha doBrasil para ingressar na OCDE(Organização para Cooperação e Desenvolvimento e Econômico), o clube dos países ricos, representa um dos maiores reveses doGoverno Jair Bolsonaroaté agora. Em entrevista ao EL PAÍS, ele diz que a política externa brasileira está nas mãos de pessoas inexperientes que confundemo tempo da diplomacia com o das redes sociais.
Pergunta.Qual é a sua avaliação sobre essa desistência, ainda que temporária, dos Estados Unidos de apoiar aentrada do Brasil na OCDE? O que o Brasil perde com isso?
Resposta.O Governo Bolsonaro tem de entender que o tempo da diplomacia não é o tempo das redes sociais. As coisas foram atropeladas, principalmente no anúncio, quando ainda se começavam as conversações de um eventual apoio para ingresso na OCDE. O assunto ganhou a mídia e veiculado como se fosse uma grande conquista, como se fosse o passaporte para o Brasil entrar nessa organização. Mas não é assim que funcionam as coisas num cenário de relações internacionais. Havia outros países pleiteando essa entrada, como a Romênia e Argentina, que tiveram o apoio oficializado, e o Brasil seria verificado com o tempo, mediante o cumprimento de algumas condições. Mas o que o Governo passou para gente foi de que a entrada estava garantida já naquele momento. Acredito queo descompasso entre o que foi dito e o que se poderia esperar dos Estados Unidosnaquele momento gerou todo esse mal-estar.
P.Que poderia ser evitado, não?
R.Há notícias que estão sendo veiculadas de que o próprio Governo brasileiro já havia questionado os Estados Unidos sobre isso. Em linhas gerais, ficou pior para o Brasil que prometeu uma coisa que não se concretizou e hoje tem só perspectivas, sem nenhuma concretude. Para o Governo Bolsonaro esse foi o grande revés até o momento.
P.Uma das perdas foi abrir mão dostatusde país em desenvolvimento da OMC?
R.Sim. Ele trocou algo que já tinha sido lhe dado por um apoio que não se materializa, que não é palpável, não tem garantia. O Brasil saiu desse grupo de membros de países em desenvolvimento para se agarrar a uma sinalização, o que não me parece prudente em política externa.
P.O Brasil precisava abrir mão dessestatus?
R.O Brasil não precisava ter aberto mão de quase nada. O Brasil já aderia a muitas das regras da OCDE. Esse convite lá atrás já havia sido formulado e acabou declinado pelos Governos do PT. O Brasil poderia vir a aderir a OCDE com o tempo.
P.O que representa estar na OCDE?
R.A OCDE é um selo, é como se fosseuma certificação de que o país está cumprindo regras de mercado no âmbito internacional. Então, se o Brasil fizesse tudo isso, naturalmente a entrada chegaria por gravidade. Óbvio que teria de se mover um pouco, mas não seria um esforço tão grande. O que causa espécie é que parece que a gente quis passar uma coisa na frente da outra. Quis o selo antes de promover as reformas e é óbvio que teríamos um custo. a gente acabou tendo um custo. Me parece que foi uma estratégia completamente equivocada. Coisa de quem, de fato, não tem experiência nem conhece a política externa a fundo.
P.Você se refere aochanceler Ernesto Araújo, ao assessor internacional da Presidência, Filipe Martins, ou aos dois?
"O descompasso entre o que foi dito e o que se poderia esperar dos Estados Unidos gerou todo esse mal-estar"
P.Vamos lembrar que nosso chanceler não é de fato experimentado, com longa carreira. É da carreira do Itamaraty, mas não tem a graduação que se espera de um ministro das Relações Exteriores. E o Filipe Martins também não tem. Fora a questão ideológica que tanto um quanto o outro seguem. A inexperiência de ambos pesou muito fortemente. Vozes muito experientes do Itamaraty como [os ex-embaixadores] Marcos Azambuja e Rubens Ricupero sinalizaram que essa não era uma boa ideia. E eles tinham razão.
P.O que o Brasil perdeu ao ceder aos Estados Unidos e deixar o grupo de países desenvolvidos da OMC?
R.O Brasil perde um tratamento especial. Por exemplo, uma série de prazos mais extensos para cumprir acordos, série de benefícios que poderia ter. Um país que planeja estar integrado plenamente na ordem liberal de comércio não precisa disso. Mas não deixa de ser um privilégio que ele tenha. Se fizesse a lição de casa, talvez não precisasse desse tratamento. Agora, é óbvio que a gente abrir mão por uma perspectiva que não está palpável é uma estratégia estúpida. Poderíamos ter guardado esse trunfo para usar em negociações mais substanciosas no futuro.
R.Nós já temos uma adesão ao conjunto de regras da OCDE maior do que a Argentina e Romênia. A gente tem perto de 30% enquanto elas não chegam nem a 20%. Estamos com a lição de casa mais bem-feita. Não teria razão para querer passar adiante.
P.Por que Romênia e Argentina conseguiram esse apoio já dos EUA e o Brasil não?
R.Existe essa questão de ordem cronológica, como foi alegado ontem, eles pleitearam antes. E a negociação deles está mais bem encaminhada. A outra razão é que o Brasil precisa mostrar, além de aderir às regras, uma sinalização clara com sua política econômica, de que ele está enviando esforços reais, de que estamos nos recuperando. Hoje, a gente não vê plenamente isso acontecendo. A economia dá sinais de melhoras, mas eles são muito tímidos, ainda. Não estão plenamente satisfatórios para um investidor externo que acredite que o Brasil vá decolar. O novo Governo ainda precisa mostrar muito a que veio. Ainda temos um desemprego alto e um crescimento pífio.
P.E a relação com o Legislativo?
R.O Governo Bolsonaro ainda não tem mostrado interlocução com o parlamento. Como ele espera aprovar uma agenda ampla de reformas, se ele não consegue uma interlocução mínima com o parlamento? Conseguiu a Previdência, que ainda não está conclusa, falta um turno no Senado. E estamos nos encaminhando para o fim do primeiro ano de Governo. É muito pouco para o que foi prometido.
P.Para emitir um bom sinal já teria de ter aprovado asreformas da Previdênciae a tributária. É isso que está dizendo?
"Temos uma estratégia política ruim e ficamos sem poder de barganha lá na frente"
R.Teria de ter aprovado a Previdência e pelo menos encaminhado a tributária. Independentemente, de ter aprovado ou não, sobretudo precisaria demonstrar que tem a capacidade de aprovar, de dialogar. Um Governo que não sinaliza ter uma base de apoio parlamentar e queo presidente briga com o seu partido, demonstra uma dificuldade muito grande. Obviamente as forças fora de nosso país estão olhando para isso. Sem contar as questões ambientais, que ameaçam até o acordo União Europeia-Mercosul.
P.Como contrapartida ao apoio na OCDE o governo brasileiro também reduziu a taxa de importação do etanol dos EUA. Foi mais um equívoco do Governo?
R.Sim para este caso. Sim para o caso de liberar a entrada sem vistos. Temos de ver o protecionismo com muita atenção. O caso do etanol, reacende questões protecionistas que não são necessariamente boas em si. O problema é não utilizar esses trunfos de maneira correta. De alguma forma, dever-se-ia até abrir mão disso para a gente ter um mercado mais liberal, mas a gente usa esses trunfos de maneira errada e no momento errado. Não temos retorno disso. Temos uma estratégia política ruim e ficamos sem poder de barganha lá na frente.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, many Americans thought Japan was going to surpass the United States to become the world's largest economy, and some even arranged Japanese language lessons for their children to prepare them for a new world order:
"In 2016, as I was beginning to think concertedly about this book, my wife, Laura, and I found ourselves in Hawaii. I had with meThe Bubble Economy, Christopher Wood's excellent book on Japan's 1990s financial crisis, and was reading it as I looked out over the ocean. I came to a passage about the Japanese luxury hotel craze of that period and realized that a neighboring hotel, the just-opened Four Seasons Resort at Ko Olina, had been part of that building frenzy. Japanese developers had built the building as a high-end luxury hotel and ambitiously created its artificial ocean peninsulas -- but the hotel had been shuttered or used for less than its original high-end purpose for almost twenty-five years. Nothing close to the demand for luxury hotels projected by the Japanese had materialized. The hotel was built because banks were making loans hand over fist and not basing their decisions on realistic projections of use.
"Vestiges of Japan's 1980s lending frenzy remain in other places: in old American magazine cover stories, such as the February 2, 1987, issue of Newsweek, which intoned, 'Your next boss may be Japanese'; or with adults who grew up in the 1980s and can still remember bits of Japanese because their ambitious parents enrolled them in Japanese-language courses as children to prepare them for the new economic world order. America seemed in the grips of a Japanese corporate takeover. As the Japanese bought more and more high-profile U.S. properties, outraged old-school columnist Paul Harvey warned that Japan's growing financial presence in the United States was 'an economic Pearl Harbor,'
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"The hotel in Hawaii, like empty skyscrapers in New York and Chicago in the late 1920s, was a relic of an explosion in private lending that was allbut unprecedented in the twentieth century. From 1985 to 1990, Japan's private debt-business and household loans-catapulted from 143 percent to 182 percent, an increase of ¥343 trillion, or $2.4 trillion. That percentage increase was far higher than in the years leading up to the Great Depression orGreatRecession.
"Japan's runaway lending was concentrated in commercial real estate, the profligate construction of office buildings, hotels, and apartments and the development of tracts of land both in Japan and abroad. From 1985 to 1990, commercial real estate (CRE) loans more than doubled from ¥75 trillion to ¥187 trillion. Japan's loans of this era created building after building that would not be sold or filled for years and even decades. But Japan's use ofrealestate as collateral went far beyond CRE and conventional household mortgages. It extended to trillions of total yen in household nonmortgage loans and small- and medium-sized business loans.' Even bank loans for finance and leasing companies were largely tied to activity in the real estate industry.
"Further, Japanese banks were eager, often naive participants in the financing of U.S. leveraged buyout transactions. Japan's lending frenzy drove up real estate prices by an astonishing 300 percent in that compressed period and created a short-term economic surge that Japan and the rest of the world misconstrued as an economic miracle. Its banks, businesses, and households became overleveraged, and the country was fully overbuilt by 1990, as were other markets, such as California and Hawaii, targets of Japan'shyperactive lending.
"By the late 1980s, five of the world's ten largest commercial banks by total assets were Japanese. In the 1990s, Japan's economy reached 18 percent of world GDP, yet by 2007, it was a mere 7.9 percent. Japan followed the well-trodden boom trajectory in the 1980s but then distinguished itself by delay, denial, and delusion in the bust in the 1990s. Japan's struggles with its crisis and efforts at bank recapitalization took as long as fifteen years -- a distinct inflection from the Great Depression. Japan's financial crisis is a parable of when, and how, policy decisions matter in the postboom phases offinancialcrisis."
A Brief History of Doom Author: Richard Vague Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Copyright 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press Pages: 71-72
Pessoalmente, considero uma vergonha que o governo Bolsonaro colabore com as medidas restritivas do governo Trump em relação aos brasileiros indocumentados nos Estados Unidos. Muitos deles esperam, com a intervenção de advogados, conseguir suspensão da expulsão, provando que estão trabalhando honestamente há muitos anos nos EUA.
Os consulados brasileiros nunca emitiram tais documentos de retorno ao Brasil sem o consentimento dos próprios brasileiros, geralmente quando não havia mais recurso possível.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Governo Bolsonaro facilita deportação de brasileiros dos EUA
Mudança começou a valer em junho; advogada critica tentativa de alinhamento com Trump, que apertou cerco aos 'sem papéis'
SÃO PAULO — O governo JairBolsonaroaceitou um pleito antigo dos americanos e facilitou a deportação de brasileiros que emigraram sem visto adequado aosEstados Unidos. Com o novo procedimento, baseado em parecer jurídico e adotado em junho, os consulados brasileiros poderão enviar ao governo americano documentos dos deportáveis à revelia. Embora a medida sirva, em um primeiro momento, para casos em que se esgotaram as chances legais de se permanecer nos EUA, especialistas acreditam que o novo mecanismo pode ser utilizado para casos de deportações expressas e tendem a afastar brasileiros dos consulados, por temerem a maior colaboração com autoridades americanas.
Até então, mesmo brasileiros sem papéis e com todo o processo imigratório nos EUA esgotado, tinham que pedir passaporte ou Autorização de Retorno de Brasileiro (ARB) para pegar um avião nos EUA e entrar noBrasil. Muitos preferiam seguir presos a voltar, alguns alegando até perseguição, e não assinavam o pedido dos documentos. Agora o governo brasileiro pode conceder atestados de nacionalidade, expedidos à revelia do preso. Como foi fechado um acordo com a Polícia Federal, este documento passou a ser aceito nos aeroportos brasileiros.
APolícia Federale oItamaratynão atenderam ao pedido de entrevista. Por e-mail, oMinistério das Relações Exterioresdisse que o atestado de nacionalidade é utilizado em situações excepcionais e que brasileiros que alegarem questões humanitárias não serão deportados contra a sua vontade. Fontes do Itamaraty afirmam que alguns brasileiros já começaram a ser deportados graças à mudança, que começou a valer em junho.
Segundo as fontes, que falaram ao GLOBO sob anonimato, o governo Bolsonaro atendeu a um pleito americano de anos — o Brasil temia que a medida pudesse afastar os brasileiros dos consulados nos EUA.
A decisão brasileira também aliviaria os custos americanos de prisão. Com a atual política deWashingtonde cerco aos “sem papéis”, as detenções para imigrantes estão superlotadas e os custos têm crescido. Assim, o governo americano tem tentado acelerar os casos de deportação e ampliado as possibilidades de “deportações sumárias”, onde os imigrantes que acabaram de entrar nos EUA sequer precisam passar por um processo judicial.
A advogada brasileira Renata Castro, especializada em imigração na Flórida, alerta que, embora a medida tenha sido até então utilizada para casos em que o processo migratório explorou todos os recursos, com o tempo poderá ser usada em novas brechas pelos americanos. Ela ressalta que não é segredo que o governo de DonaldTrumpquer acelerar as deportações sumárias.
— A forma como o atual governo tem se relacionado com os EUA e a falta histórica de estratégias do governo em alianças internacionais indica que esta certidão pode ter seu uso ampliado no futuro, em casos de deportações sumárias, sem o devido processo legal — disse. — O Brasil sempre foi muito passivo em auxiliar os brasileiros no exterior, e agora busca um alinhamento muito forte com o governo de Trump.
Outros países também possuem atestados e certidões iguais ao que o Brasil passou a adotar. Mas em geral possuem, segundo diplomatas ouvidos pelo GLOBO, uma postura de maior defesa de seus cidadãos. OMéxico, por exemplo, chega a pagar advogados de imigração para encarcerados nos EUA por questões migratórias — com a fiança, eles continuam nos EUA, trabalham e, invariavelmente, enviam dinheiro para a família no México. Até aGuatemalaconseguiu impedir o plano americano para que seus cidadãos que buscam asilo no país esperem pela concessão da permissão em seu país de origem. Assim, podem esperar em solo americano enquanto os processos são analisados.
Castro afirma que esta deve ser a primeira de novas medidas brasileiras que podem prejudicar a vida do imigrante nos EUA. Com a atual política de aproximação entre os dois governos, ela espera mais parcerias no compartilhamento de informações entre os países e auxílio para avaliação sobre a concessão ou não de asilos a brasileiros. A advogada lembra que no último ano só foram concedidos 26 asilos a brasileiros, de um total de 1.546 pedidos analisados.
Comunidade com medo
O temor de que a maior aproximação entre os governos leve a prejuízos a imigrantes sem papéis nos EUA cresce na comunidade brasileira. A indicação do deputado federalEduardo Bolsonaro(PSL-SP) ao posto de embaixador em Washington amplia esse cenário. Em março, o filho do presidente disse que os imigrantes brasileiros ilegais nos EUA são uma “vergonha” para o país.
— Vemos toda a comunidade com muito medo das políticas migratórias de Trump e o atual governo brasileiro, com sua aproximação a Washington, piora as coisas. Muitos se sentem abandonados — afirmou Natalicia Tracy, diretora do Centro do Trabalhador Brasileiro em Boston.
“Caso a situação seja classificada como de natureza humanitária, os consulados deverão desconsiderar a expedição de atestado de nacionalidade. Sendo assim, não cabe falar em recusa por questão humanitária, já que eventual identificação de razões humanitárias é realizada a priori”, informou o ministério.
Em e-mail enviado ao GLOBO, o Itamaraty informa que o atestado já é utilizado em países comoAustráliaeJapão: “Os atestados de nacionalidade não constituem objeto de solicitação de outros Estados. Trata-se de obrigação do Estado brasileiro, como já se referiu acima, de oferecer marco legal seguro a seus nacionais deportados”.
America is no fan of Huawei. Its officials have spent months warning that the Chinese giant’s smartphones and networking gear could be Trojan horses for Chinese spies (something Huawei has repeatedly denied). They have threatened to withhold intelligence from any ally that allows the firm in. On May 15th they raised the stakes. President Donald Trump barred American firms from using telecoms equipment made by firms posing a “risk to national security”. His order named no names. But its target was plain.
For all the drama, the import ban hardly matters. Huawei has long been barred from America, in practice if not on paper. More significant was the announcement by the Commerce Department, on the same day, that it was adding Huawei to a list of firms with which American companies cannot do business without official permission. That amounts to a prohibition on exports of American technology to Huawei.
It is a seismic decision, for no technology firm is an island. Supply chains are highly specialised and globally connected. Cutting them off — “weaponising interdependence”, in the jargon — can cause serious disruption. When ZTE, another Chinese technology company, received the same treatment in 2018 for violating American sanctions on Iran, it was brought to the brink of ruin. It survived only because Mr Trump intervened, claiming it was a favour to Xi Jinping, China’s president.
Huawei matters more than ZTE. It is China’s biggest high-tech company, and is seen as a national champion. Its name translates roughly as “Chinese achievement”. Revenues of $105bn put it in the same league as Microsoft. Only Samsung, a South Korean firm, sells more smartphones. Huawei holds many crucial patents on superfast 5G mobile networks, and is the largest manufacturer of telecoms equipment. Were it to go under, the shock waves would rattle all of tech world.
By May 20th the impact of the ban was becoming clear. Google said it had stopped supplying the proprietary components of its Android mobile operating system to Huawei. A string of American chipmakers, including Intel, Qualcomm and Micron, have also ceased sales. Later that day the Commerce Department softened its line slightly, saying that firms could continue to supply Huawei for 90 days, but for existing products — for instance, with software updates for Huawei phones already in use. New sales, on which Huawei’s future revenue depends, remain banned.
Mexico eyes Brazil for U.S. asylum deal as Trump revives tariff threat
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico and the United States may explore additional steps next month to restrict illegal immigration from Central America, with the threat of tariffs hanging over Mexico if it does not do enough to satisfy U.S. demands, officials said on Monday.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Brazil, Panama, and Guatemala may need to be brought in to help if a deal unveiled last week between Washington and Mexico fails to reduce the numbers of U.S.-bound migrants crossing Mexico.
The deal struck on Friday averted import tariffs on all Mexican goods, which U.S. President Donald Trump had vowed to impose unless Mexico did more to curb migration.
The Trump administration said on Monday it could still apply tariffs if it judged that Mexico had not done enough, with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling reporters it expected to see results within four to six weeks.
The deal cut between the two nations last week means Mexico will expand a program under which migrants applying for asylum in the United States wait out the process in Mexico. Mexico also pledged to reinforce its southern border with Guatemala with 6,000 members of its National Guard militarized police.
A major sticking point in last week’s talks was a U.S. demand that Mexico be declared a “safe third country” for asylum seekers, requiring them to seek refuge in Mexico if they passed through the country on the way to the United States.
Mexico rejected that demand, though Ebrard revealed it would go back on the table if Mexico could not stem the flow of migrants heading to the U.S. border.
“If we don’t have results on what we’re doing (in 45 days), we’ll start conversations on what they want, which is that Mexico will be a safe third country,” he told Mexican radio.
Such a step would require the Mexican government to consult the Senate on how to proceed, Ebrard said.
Trump said on Monday afternoon Mexico would soon announce an “undisclosed portion” of the deal that would have to be taken up by the Mexican Congress. He did not offer more details.
“They have to get approval, and they will get approval. If they don’t get approval, we’ll have to think in terms of tariffs or whatever,” he told reporters at the White House.
U.S. stocks were higher on Monday after the deal, easing worries about the impact of another trade war on the global economy. The Mexican peso rose more than 2% against the dollar.
Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard gestures as Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador looks on during a news conference at National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico June 10, 2019. REUTERS/Gustavo Graf
BRAZIL, PANAMA, GUATEMALA
Ebrard said that if Mexico could not contain the migrant flows, other countries might also need to be involved.
Asylum seekers from El Salvador and Honduras first pass through Guatemala when fleeing their homes, while Cubans and Haitians often fly first to Panama before heading to the United States through Mexico. Migrants from African countries regularly fly to Brazil before making the arduous journey north.
“If the measures we are proposing are not successful, we have to discuss with the United States and with other countries, like Guatemala, Panama and Brazil,” Ebrard said. “If we have to participate in a regional model like the one I have just described, we would have to present that to Congress.”
While he did not go into detail, Ebrard suggested that asylum seekers might have to seek refuge in the first country they reached after leaving their homeland.
The governments of Brazil, Panama and Guatemala did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
U.S. border officers apprehended more than 132,000 people crossing from Mexico in May, the highest monthly level since 2006. Trump, who has called the surge in migrants an “invasion,” had threatened to keep raising duties up to 25% unless Mexico did more to curb it.
Mexico had no specific target for the reduction of migrant numbers, Ebrard said. Still, Martha Barcena, Mexico’s ambassador to Washington, told CBS News at the weekend there had been discussion of reducing the numbers to levels of around 2018.
Ebrard also said there was no agreement between the United States and Mexico to purchase more agricultural products under the accord, despite Trump saying over the weekend that Mexico had agreed to buy “large quantities” from U.S. farmers.
Ebrard said he thought Trump might be making a calculation based on Mexican agricultural imports when freed from the threat of tariffs.
Reporting by Dave Graham; Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Lesley Wroughton, Doina Chiacu and Makini Brice in Washington and Frank Jack Daniel, Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia in Mexico City; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Peter Cooney
THE MASSIVE influx of Central American migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border is a real problem, to which President Trump’s sudden threat ofescalating tariffsagainst Mexico is a bizarre and wildly inappropriate response. Not only does it attribute, spuriously, all the blame for the migrant flow to Mexico, but it also takes that friendly country’s economy hostage — unless and until “the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico, to be determined in our sole discretion and judgment,” as the president put it in astatementThursday night. U.S. consumers and companies will suffer potentially major collateral damage, all for the sake of a dispute that has nothing to do with trade.
Mr. Trump undermines goodwill he had recently reestablished with Mexico byliftingsteel and aluminum tariffs; this was done to promote ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement by Mexico and Canada. Now the treaty’s prospects for passage will again plummet, both in Mexico City and in Congress. Mr. Trump has just shown — again — why it is so hard for any counterpart, domestic or international, to work with him.
If Mr. Trump actually carries out the ultimatum by his self-imposed June 10 deadline, the American consumer will pay to the tune of a few hundred million dollars at first, and $3 billion if Mexico hasn’t satisfied him by October, thus triggering maximum tariffs of 25 percent.And that is forfresh produce alone; projected over the 2018 total of imports from Mexico of$372 billion, including the vast automotive supply chain, the maximum cost could be $93 billion. Mr. Trump is not thinking in cost-benefit terms but rather casts the “lawless chaos” and “mass incursion” as “an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
The latter phrasing is necessary to trigger theInternational Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that has empowered presidents to act against adversaries such as Iran — and which Mr. Trump now stretches to threaten economic sanctions againstour second-largest trading partner. He has apparently done so without the congressional consultation the statute calls for “in every possible instance.”
A tax increase imposed by sudden executive fiat, in pursuit of an irrational conflict with a neighbor and close ally, counterproductive for the White House’s own declared priorities — this epitomizes the kind of erratic presidential rule the Constitution intended to prevent. We are experiencing the downside of past legislation delegating “emergency” international economic power to the executive branch; Congress must, on a bipartisan basis, take it back.
That is a long-term project. In the near term, it’s up to more level-headed parties to try to thwart Mr. Trump. To his credit, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has responded with relative restraint, refusing to capitulate but also dispatching diplomats to Washington. TheRepublican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, called Mr. Trump’s threat “a misuse of presidential tariff authority” and urged him to pursue alternatives. That’s a start, but reining in this latest fit of presidential pique may take more principled resistance from Republican lawmakers than they have previously shown.
Senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Atlantic, May 16, 2019
A year after abandoning the Iran nuclear agreement, President Donald Trump is doubling down on a risky and an ill-fated “maximum pressure” campaign. He’s tried to brand this strategy as a kind of coercive diplomacy, purportedly aimed at an elusive “better deal.” But so far, his strategy is all coercion and no diplomacy. His aggressive escalation of sanctions, the blustery rhetoric of his senior officials, and his administration’s lack of direct engagement with Tehran betray a fundamentally different goal: the capitulation or implosion of the Iranian regime.
Painful experience has shown that neither of those objectives is realistic. In the meantime, two sets of risks loom large.
The first is the risk of a violent collision, whether intended or unintended. In the past week, we’ve seen the U.S. announce the dispatch of an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers in response to perceived Iranian threats against American personnel in the region. We’ve also seen reported attacks on shipping and oil infrastructure around the Persian Gulf. With American forces and Iranian proxies in tight quarters across Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf, and no direct communications between Washington and Tehran, either side could misjudge or misinterpret the other’s moves.
Trump’s hawkish advisers and the hard-liners in Tehran could easily become mutual enablers in pushing a crisis up the escalatory ladder. The idea that the conflict is inevitable can produce momentum of its own, as can the sort of hubris that led to a disastrous war in Iraq in 2003. And should Iran abandon the deal altogether, the odds of conflict will grow larger still.
An escalating conflict brings with it an increased risk of significant collateral damage. Fissures between the U.S. and our European allies are widening as a result of our withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, our subsequent pressure campaign, and our erratic saber-rattling. We’re also eroding the long-term utility of economic sanctions with our reckless unilateralism. Even our closest partners have begun to talk publicly about reducing exposure to the American financial system as a hedge against U.S. economic pressure.
We’ve seen coercive diplomacy succeed with Iran—this is not how it works.
We’re the two negotiators who led the secret bilateral talks with the Iranians that paved the way for the interim and comprehensive nuclear deals between Iran and the so-called P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. The United States built broad international pressure to bring Tehran to the table—the political leverage of an international community united in its determination to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon; the military leverage of a credible threat of force; and the economic leverage of sanctions that ultimately produced a 50 percent drop in Iran’s oil exports and in the value of its currency.
That pressure was necessary but not sufficient, because pressure is not an end in itself. It was coupled with a realistic aim—a sharply constrained, tightly limited, and closely monitored civilian nuclear program—and a willingness to engage directly with the Iranians, not through empty summitry but over many months of arduous negotiations.
Now, after more than a year of coercion, with no capitulation or implosion in sight, and no shortage of risks on the horizon, it’s time to take diplomacy seriously again. That means going beyond the repetition of terms the other side won’t ever accept. The best way forward for the Trump administration is to signal privately that its maximalist demands are not carved in stone and pursue a more realistic agenda on nuclear issues. That starts with working to extend the nuclear deal’s timelines, and recognizing that further sanctions relief will be necessary to encourage Iranian acceptance; it means talking quietly about securing the release of Americans detained in brutal Iranian prisons; it means probing for possible understandings on Iran’s ballistic-missile programs; and it means encouraging dialogue on the wars in Afghanistan and Yemen, where Iran will be a player in any eventual settlement.
Contacts with the Iranians are not a reward for bad behavior, and we should have no illusions that they will engage productively on all our concerns. But diplomacy is the best way to test intentions and define the realm of the possible, repair the damage our unilateral turn has inflicted on our international partnerships, and invest in more effective coercion if and when it’s needed to focus minds in Tehran.
Coercive diplomacy—when both elements of the approach are carefully synchronized—can deliver. On the other hand, coercion without diplomacy can lead to huge blunders in the Middle East. We’ve seen that before. A lot is at stake over the coming months. Given the impulses and track record of this administration, it’s hard to be optimistic, and easy to see more trouble ahead.
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AmbassadorWILLIAM J. BURNSis President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Deputy Secretary of State, and author ofThe Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for its Renewal.
JAKE SULLIVANis a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was the national-security adviser for Vice President Joe Biden, the director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, and the deputy chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the U.S. is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East.
Speaking during a campaign rally in Florida, President Donald Trump raised the prospect of holding talks with Iran over the nuclear deal he withdrew the U.S. from.
"I hope to be able at some point, maybe it won't happen, possibly won't, to sit down and work out a fair deal, we're not looking to hurt anybody ... we just don't want (Iran) to have nuclear weapons,"Trump said Wednesday in Panama City Beach.
Trump's remarks followed an announcement Wednesday from Iran's President Hassan Rouhani announced that the Middle East nation would stop complying withtwo provisions in the nuclear accord it signed with world powers.
Rouhani said Iran would reduce its compliance with the 2015 dealin response to new restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, part of a broader U.S. campaign to ratchet up economic and military pressure on Tehran.
Iran's declaration came on the one-year anniversary ofTrump's unilateral withdrawalfrom the agreement that limited Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Trump walked away from the deal he has described as the "worst ever negotiated" because he does not believe it does enough to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions or its ballistic missile programs and support for terrorism.
In his announcement, Rouhani said Iran will keep excess low-enriched uranium and "heavy water" from its nuclear program inside the country – as opposed to selling it internationally – in a move that effectively amounts to a partial breach of the deal.
The Trump administration said last week it would sanction any country or business that purchased those products from Iran.
Rouhani set a 60-day deadline for new terms to the nuclear accord, absent negotiations withthe United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union. He said that if those terms aren't met, Iran will resume higher uranium enrichment, the process that creates nuclear fuel.
"We felt that the nuclear deal needs a surgery, and the painkiller pills of the last year have been ineffective," Rouhani said in a nationally televised address. "This surgery is for saving the deal, not destroying it."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in Moscow, tweeted, "After a year of patience, Iran stops measures that U.S. has made impossible to continue." Zarif warned that world powers have "a narrowing window to reverse this."
American officials on Wednesday slapped yet more economic penalties on Iran. The White House announced sanctions aimed at blocking Iran from exporting iron, steel, aluminum and copper, which it said were the regime’s largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue.
Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran and senior policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Iran intends to expand its nuclear weapons program. "That is in defiance of international norms and yet another attempt by the regime at nuclear blackmail," he said.
Experts said Iran's move is a relatively soft counterpunch to the Trump administration's intense campaign to isolate the regime politically and economically. Some suggested the Trump administration's policies seem designed to achieve this exact escalation.
"This was pretty predictable," said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the Crisis Group, a nonpartisan group focused on preventing conflict.
“The U.S. has tried to bring Iran to its knees with its maximum pressure campaign in a minimum amount of time, and for about a year, the Iranians demonstrated restraint and remained committed to their obligations under the nuclear deal," he said.
"But they have increasingly less to lose because the U.S. sanctions have effectively deprived them of all the benefits that the nuclear deal promised," Vaez said.
Vaez said Iran's response was "cleverly devised" to shift the blame to the Trump administration "because the U.S. last week basically rendered it illegal or a sanctionable act for any country to buy the excess ... heavy water and low-enriched uranium."
Others echoed that assessment and said Iran’s announcement did not necessarily signal a desire by the regime to become a nuclear-armed nation.
"I think we should be very careful about assuming that Iran stepping away from the JCPOA means stepping closer to the bomb," said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, a dual American Iranian national who runs a news and research agency focused on Iran’s economy. He noted that Iran is still a party to an international nuclear nonproliferation treaty and has not seriously pursued a nuclear weapons program for over a decade.
"So far, Iran remains committed to the deal, and we should not trap ourselves in a deal/bomb binary," said London-based Batmanghelidj.
The Pentagon redirectedaircraft bombers and a carrier strike groupto the Middle East, citing intercepted intelligence indicating that Iran or its proxies in the region might be preparing attacks on American military troops and facilities.
Last month, Trump designatedIran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an elite wing of the nation's military that also plays a large economic role, a terrorist organization.
The economic sanctions the White House has imposed since withdrawing from the nuclear deal officially target Iran's government and industries but they have also hindered Iranians' access to essential medicines and consumer products.
Pompeo took anunscheduled trip to Iraqon Tuesday where he met with Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and briefed Iraqi officials on the "increased threat stream that we had seen" from Iranian forces.
"We talked to them about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it’s able to adequately protect Americans in their country," Pompeo said.
"I think everyone will look at the Iranian decision and have to make their own assessment about how much increased risk there is," he said.
There are about 5,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq.
America's top diplomat gave an address Wednesday in London where the topic of rising tensions between the United States and Iran came up again.
"They take hostages and repress their own people. I urge the U.K. to stand with us to rein in the regime’s bloodletting and lawlessness, not soothe the Ayatollahs angry at our decision to pull out of the nuclear deal," Pompeo said in Britain's capital.
President Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated the nuclear deal, sought to block Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons through diplomacy. The Trump administration, by contrast, has not been shy in its preference for a campaign of"maximum pressure" on Iranand has cut off all contact with the regime.
Vaez said Iran's announcement was a measured response and designed "mostly to serve as leverage in order to compel the remaining parties in the deal to throw Iran an economic lifeline in the face of U.S. sanctions."
European signatories to the nuclear accord have attempted to stay in the nuclear agreement by establishing a financial mechanism, known as INSTEX, intended to help them circumvent U.S. sanctions, but it has not been fully implemented.
Animosity between the United States and Iran stretches back decades to when the CIA helped install a dictator as Iran's leader in 1953. A hostage crisis in the U.S. Embassyin Tehran coincided with the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton say confronting Iran is key to achieving peace and security in the Middle East, and both men are among Iran's fiercest critics in Washington. Bolton was instrumental in advocating for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
They provided few details about the nature of the threat that led to the sending of a carrier strike group and bomber task force to the Persian Gulf. Iran-backed militias killed 608 U.S. soldiers in Iraq from 2003-2011, according to the Pentagon. Tehran is regularly accused of being the largest state sponsor of terrorism, but the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has repeatedly verified that the regime has adhered to the 2015 nuclear pact – even after the U.S. departure last May.
"The (nuclear deal) is doing what it was designed to do: preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. As such, the deal is too important to be allowed to die," the directors of 18 foreign affairs think tanks and research institutes wrote in a joint letter published Wednesday as Iran signaled that the accord could totally unravel.
"I’m deeply worried that the Trump administration is leading us toward an unnecessary war with Iran," said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a statement late Tuesday. "Let me make one thing clear: The Trump administration has no legal authority to start a war against Iran without the consent of Congress."
Batmanghelidj said, "Iranians perceive something deeply vindictive about the way the Trump administration is treating their country."
That doesn't mean that people are growing more supportive of the Islamic Republic.
"It is possible to be dismayed with both the U.S. government and their own government," he said.