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.
Como pode tudo isto estar acontecendo? Como nossa “democracia”, arduamente (sic) reconquistada chegou a esse nível?
São diversas as gravidades que se assenhoram do País. A militarização do Estado, o desmonte do nosso frágil e decadente sistema educacional, a desintegração do que ainda resta da saúde pública, a implosão da nossa parca estrutura cultural, as agressões – ainda crescentes – ao meio ambiente e o aparelhamento ideológico do sistema policial e de segurança pública.
Esses movimentos do governo Bolsonaro se expandem sem freios ou controles. Nossos endinheirados pouco se importam com tudo isso desde que nada atinja os seus interesses imediatos. Pressionados pelas grandes economias europeias e asiáticas, parte dos nossos capitalistas, sobretudo do sistema financeiros, decidiu mobilizar-se em defesa do meio ambiente. Mas, nada ainda, expressivo. O resto não interessa exatamente!
É flagrante, ainda que não surpreendente, o silêncio do Congresso, os passos e descompassos do Poder Judiciário e a mudez das antigas representações da sociedade civil: OAB, CNBB, IAB, ABI, sindicatos e os chamados conselhos de classe. A nossa academia, de fato, sobre severo ataque, mantêm-se calada, como calada ficou durante todo os desmandos da chamada “Era PT’. Alguns temas relevantes são destacados pela mídia, mesmo preservando-se – não raro com flagrantes distorções – a macroeconomia liberal do ministro Paulo Guedes. A saber: por que o silêncio sobre os 47% do orçamento drenados para os bancos, sem nenhuma explicação ou justificativa compreensível?
Como pode tudo isto estar acontecendo? Como nossa “democracia”, arduamente (sic) reconquistada chegou a esse nível? São perguntas que, direta ou indiretamente, se pronunciam na grande mídia e nos raros diálogos civilizados que teimam em vicejar na República. Assim como não parece claro o chamado “fenômeno Bolsonaro”, suas origens, constituição e apoios, também não compreendemos, na sua devida magnitude as ações – devidamente respaldadas e financiadas – dos chamados grupos “neofascistas” que se organizam e agem nos quatro cantos da República. A última cena se deu em torno da sequência bárbara na vida da menina de dez anos, gravida e estuprada pelo tio criminoso. Bolsonaristas mobilizaram-se para tentar impedir o cumprimento de uma ordem judicial que determinava a interrupção daquela gravidez, ameaçando médicos e hospitais.
O cenário fica mais denso quando constatamos – de acordo com recente pesquisa do Instituto Datafolha – que a maioria da população brasileira, em quase todas as classes e estratos sociais, apoia o governo Bolsonaro e estaria disposta a reelege-lo em 2022. A busca de compreensão e as interpretações foram muitas, mas nenhuma parece ter convencido da forma devida o distinto público. De tudo que li, me chamou a atenção o não reconhecimento, por parte dos nossos analistas mais evidentes, ao fato de que não temos instituições funcionais e que nunca tivemos, e nada sugere que vamos ter, algo que entendemos por cidadania.
O chamado mundo moderno, esse que brotou das Revoluções Francesa e Americana, teve dois pilares indissolúveis: as instituições constituidoras do Estado e a cidadania que ordena e pune, mas liberta e oferece identidade a todos os homens diante dos seus pares.
Esta revista foi elaborada sob a administração Aloysio Nunes, no ano final do governo de Michel Temer. Ela ficou pronta em dezembro de 2018. Nunca foi distribuída e apenas "desapareceu", a partir da nova administração do Itamaraty, em 2019. Não sabemos onde está e se as dezenas, centenas de exemplares impressos, pagos com recursos públicos, foram simplesmente guardados, triturados, eliminados, ou o quê.
Tenho um único artigo nesse número, que tive de abreviar, pois os recursos eram limitados para abrigar as minhas 25 páginas originais, reduzidas a apenas 16.
Ofereço aos interessados na história do Brasil, a menos de 3 anos dos 200 anos da nossa independência política.
Minha colaboração foi esta aqui, na ficha original do trabalho:
3317. “Hipólito da Costa: o primeiro estadista do Brasil”, Brasília, 8 agosto 2018, 25 p. Artigo sobre o primeiro jornalista independente do Brasil como homem de Estado, para a revista 200, do projeto Bicentenário, sob editoria do embaixador Carlos Henrique Cardim. Revisto em 27/08/2018. Divulgado no blog Diplomatizzando (link: https://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2018/10/hipolito-jose-da-costa-o-primeiro.html), em Academia.edu (link: https://www.academia.edu/s/23837e7fa3/hipolito-da-costa-o-primeiro-estadista-do-brasil-2018). Revisto para redução do tamanho do texto, em 22/11/2018, 16 p.; enviado a Carlos H. Cardim. Publicado em versão abreviada na revista 200 (Brasília: MRE, ano I, n. 1, outubro-dezembro de 2018, ISSN: 2596-2280; pp. 186-211). Relação de Publicados n. 1298.
Apagar o passado Vivemos momento em que se acende alerta de apagão político-moral Roberto DaMatta O Globo, 19/08/2020 - 01:00 https://oglobo.globo.com/opiniao/apagar-passado-24593220 A consciência demanda organizar o passado. Há muitas formas de lidar com o tempo. Em sociedades sem escrita, nas quais a morte de um velho seria equivalente à perda parcial de muitos fatos e mitos — algo próximo da destruição de uma biblioteca nacional —, trata-se de um desastre inafiançável. Será que um dia vamos conhecer nosso passado milenar? Ou existem passagens que simplesmente sumiram, como a poeira das galáxias e das nossas invisíveis almas? O leitor pode se sentir incomodado pelo assunto. Eu, cronista enviesado, que, se não estou, devo ingressar na cavilosa lista dos antifascistas convictos, apenas reitero que muito do que fizemos é esquecido, senão propositadamente apagado, porque seria prova de incoerências, crimes, projetos hediondos e contradições incontornáveis, sobretudo em coletivos fundados na autoridade do pai, do rei, do supremo sacerdote ou do juiz. Investigando nossas vidas, descobrimos coisas que apagamos e muitas outras que programamos esquecer. Quando esquecemos de boa-fé e eventualmente ferimos alguém, acertamos o mal-estar por meio de pedidos de desculpa ou perdão. No mundo jurídico-político anistiamos, formalmente suprimindo fatos passados. Reinterpretações desfazem e mudam o passado. Pedir desculpas, perdoar e anistiar “lavam a alma” e são passaportes para recomeços. Mas, para apagar ou esconder o passado debaixo do tapete, como é comum no Brasil, é necessário um penoso, discutível e complexo refazer histórico-social — tipo, como esquecer a ditadura militar. É preciso o autoritarismo forte presente para controlar, conforme sabia o Grande Irmão de George Orwell, o passado. Eis dois episódios que agasalhei na memória. Ambos ocorreram com um professor, inglês até a alma, que havia programado um jantar de sexta-feira com a esposa e, ao chegar em casa, com ela desentendeu-se. Algo banal, como uma toalha suja, despertou ressentimentos e, com eles, um inesperado ódio expresso em memórias amargas e frases agressivas. Em meio à tempestade, porém, o marido abriu um parêntese similar a uma desculpa e denunciou o mal-entendido. “Querida”, disse, “isso não está acontecendo. Eu vou sair e entrar novamente em casa e nós vamos jantar conforme combinado”. E assim foi feito. Um outro evento com o mesmo professor confirma, quem sabe, essa capacidade humana de desconstruir, cujo melhor e mais dramático exemplo é o elo entre paz e guerra. Depois de uma impecável conferência em impecável estilo britânico para uma plateia encantada numa universidade do sul dos Estados Unidos, fomos jantar com um colega que hospedou o conferencista. Na manhã seguinte, fui tomar café com o anfitrião, que perguntou ao professor num misto de curiosidade e provocação: “Eu acho”, disse, “que fui muito ofensivo ontem, não?” Ao que, com notável elegância, o professor retrucou: “O que ocorreu ontem foi tão desagradável, mas tão desagradável, que eu simplesmente apaguei da minha memória”. Se fazemos, podemos desfazer. Democracias podem desandar em regimes policialescos que trazem do passado escravocrático um viés semelhante ao dos nazifascismos e estalinismos. Vivemos um momento no qual se acende um alerta de apagão político-moral que suspende o bom senso. A direita bolsonarista tem como simbólico um inacreditável terraplanismo — um contrassenso indicativo de uma postura, digamos o mínimo, radicalmente irracional. Na política, não há dúvida de que se quer um presidencialismo absolutista. Uma outra contradição que, ao lado de um patológico familismo presidencial, completa a negação de solenes promessas de campanha. Em suma: testemunhamos tentativas de apagar o dito que se transforma num não dito, incompatível com uma necessária estabilidade capaz de minar a autoestima e o respeito internacional, sobretudo em tempos de pandemia num mundo globalizado. Se esquecemos as implicações morais da escravidão e as obrigações igualitárias da República, por que, como adverte o jornalista Carlos Alberto Sardenberg no GLOBO, não livramos, por meio de um apagão legal, o principal condenado da Lava-Jato, avocando que o magistrado foi parcial? Mas, se isso for admitido, como o plano da lei e o caráter dos magistrados ficam perante todos os condenados na mesma operação anticorrupção que ainda está em curso? Para quem duvida que o autoritarismo protofascista nacional é avesso ao igualitarismo, seria cabível livrar somente o ex-presidente, quando todos os seus asseclas foram investigados por um mesmo magistrado? Para os leigos em jurisprudência, tal livramento seria mais um “Você sabe com quem está falando?” na área criminal. Sabemos que a realidade pode ser manipulada, mas, por isso mesmo, temos consciência de limites. Um deles é a morte ou, no caso, o supremo suicídio da estrutura jurídica nacional. Esse instrumento que sustenta o regime republicano num simples ideal: o de que todos são iguais perante a lei, no caso, os julgados e condenados... Resta candidamente avisar que apagar passados impede construir futuros.
Trump administration officials have compared the global allocation of vaccines against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 to oxygen masks dropping inside a depressurizing airplane. “You put on your own first, and then we want to help others as quickly as possible,” Peter Marks, a senior official at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who oversaw the initial phases of vaccine development for the U.S. government, said during a panel discussion in June. The major difference, of course, is that airplane oxygen masks do not drop only in first class—which is the equivalent of what will happen when vaccines eventually become available if governments delay providing access to them to people in other countries.
By early July, there were 160 candidate vaccines against the new coronavirus in development, with 21 in clinical trials. Although it will be months, at least, before one or more of those candidates has been proved to be safe and effective and is ready to be delivered, countries that manufacture vaccines (and wealthy ones that do not) are already competing to lock in early access. And to judge from the way governments have acted during the current pandemic and past outbreaks, it seems highly likely that such behavior will persist. Absent an international, enforceable commitment to distribute vaccines globally in an equitable and rational way, leaders will instead prioritize taking care of their own populations over slowing the spread of COVID-19 elsewhere or helping protect essential health-care workers and highly vulnerable populations in other countries.
That sort of “vaccine nationalism,” or a “my country first” approach to allocation, will have profound and far-reaching consequences. Without global coordination, countries may bid against one another, driving up the price of vaccines and related materials. Supplies of proven vaccines will be limited initially even in some rich countries, but the greatest suffering will be in low- and middle-income countries. Such places will be forced to watch as their wealthier counterparts deplete supplies and will have to wait months (or longer) for their replenishment. In the interim, health-care workers and billions of elderly and other high-risk inhabitants in poorer countries will go unprotected, which will extend the pandemic, increase its death toll, and imperil already fragile health-care systems and economies. In their quest to obtain vaccines, countries without access to the initial stock will search for any form of leverage they can find, including blocking exports of critical vaccine components, which will lead to the breakdown of supply chains for raw ingredients, syringes, and vials. Desperate governments may also strike short-term deals for vaccines with adverse consequences for their long-term economic, diplomatic, and strategic interests. The result will be not only needless economic and humanitarian hardship but also intense resentment against vaccine-hoarding countries, which will imperil the kind of international cooperation that will be necessary to tackle future outbreaks—not to mention other pressing challenges, such as climate change and nuclear proliferation.
It is not too late for global cooperation to prevail over global dysfunction, but it will require states and their political leaders to change course. What the world needs is an enforceable COVID-19 vaccine trade and investment agreement that would alleviate the fears of leaders in vaccine-producing countries, who worry that sharing their output would make it harder to look after their own populations. Such an agreement could be forged and fostered by existing institutions and systems. And it would not require any novel enforcement mechanisms: the dynamics of vaccine manufacturing and global trade generally create layers of interdependence, which would encourage participants to live up to their commitments. What it would require, however, is leadership on the part of a majority of vaccine-manufacturing countries—including, ideally, the United States.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
The goal of a vaccine is to raise an immune response so that when a vaccinated person is exposed to the virus, the immune system takes control of the pathogen and the person does not get infected or sick. The vaccine candidates against COVID-19 must be proved to be safe and effective first in animal studies, then in small trials in healthy volunteers, and finally in large trials in representative groups of people, including the elderly, the sick, and the young.
Most of the candidates currently in the pipeline will fail. If one or more vaccines are proved to be safe and effective at preventing infection and a large enough share of a population gets vaccinated, the number of susceptible individuals will fall to the point where the coronavirus will not be able to spread. That population-wide protection, or “herd immunity,” would benefit everyone, whether vaccinated or not.
It is not clear yet whether achieving herd immunity will be possible with this coronavirus. A COVID-19 vaccine may prove to be more like the vaccines that protect against influenza: a critical public health tool that reduces the risk of contracting the disease, experiencing its most severe symptoms, and dying from it, but that does not completely prevent the spread of the virus. Nevertheless, given the potential of vaccines to end or contain the most deadly pandemic in a century, world leaders as varied as French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres have referred to them as global public goods—a resource to be made available to all, with the use of a vaccine in one country not interfering with its use in another.
At least initially, however, that will not be the reality. During the period when global supplies of COVID-19 vaccines remain limited, providing them to some people will necessarily delay access for others. That bottleneck will prevent any vaccine from becoming a truly global public good.
It is not too late for global cooperation to prevail over global dysfunction.
Vaccine manufacturing is an expensive, complex process, in which even subtle changes may alter the purity, safety, or efficacy of the final product. That is why regulators license not just the finished vaccine but each stage of production and each facility where it occurs. Making a vaccine involves purifying raw ingredients; formulating and adding stabilizers, preservatives, and adjuvants (substances that increase the immune response); and packaging doses into vials or syringes. A few dozen companies all over the world can carry out that last step, known as “fill and finish.” And far fewer can handle the quality-controlled manufacture of active ingredients—especially for more novel, sophisticated vaccines, whose production has been dominated historically by just four large multinational firms based in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Roughly a dozen other companies now have some ability to manufacture such vaccines at scale, including a few large outfits, such as the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines. But most are small manufacturers that would be unable to produce billions of doses.
Further complicating the picture is that some of today’s leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates are based on emerging technologies that have never before been licensed. Scaling up production and ensuring timely approvals for these novel vaccines will be challenging, even for rich countries with experienced regulators. All of this suggests that the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines will be limited to a handful of countries.
And even after vaccines are ready, a number of factors might delay their availability to nonmanufacturing states. Authorities in producing countries might insist on vaccinating large numbers of people in their own populations before sharing a vaccine with other countries. There might also turn out to be technical limits on the volume of doses and related vaccine materials that companies can produce each day. And poor countries might not have adequate systems to deliver and administer whatever vaccines they do manage to get.
During that inevitable period of delay, there will be many losers, especially poorer countries. But some rich countries will suffer, too, including those that sought to develop and manufacture their own vaccines but bet exclusively on the wrong candidates. By rejecting cooperation with others, those countries will have gambled their national health on hyped views of their own exceptionalism.
And even “winning” countries will needlessly suffer in the absence of an enforceable scheme to share proven vaccines. If health systems collapse under the strain of the pandemic and foreign consumers are ill or dying, there will be less global demand for export-dependent industries in rich countries, such as aircraft or automobiles. If foreign workers are under lockdown and cannot do their jobs, cross-border supply chains will be disrupted, and even countries with vaccine supplies will be deprived of the imported parts and services they need to keep their economies moving.
PAGING DR. HOBBES
Forecasts project that the coronavirus pandemic could kill 40 million people and reduce global economic output by $12.5 trillion by the end of 2021. Ending this pandemic as soon as possible is in everyone’s interest. Yet in most capitals, appeals for a global approach have gone unheeded.
In fact, the early months of the pandemic involved a decided shift in the wrong direction. In the face of global shortages, first China; then France, Germany, and the European Union; and finally the United States hoarded supplies of respirators, surgical masks, and gloves for their own hospital workers’ use. Overall, more than 70 countries plus the European Union imposed export controls on local supplies of personal protective equipment, ventilators, or medicines during the first four months of the pandemic. That group includes most of the countries where potential COVID-19 vaccines are being manufactured.
Such hoarding is not new. A vaccine was developed in just seven months for the 2009 pandemic of the influenza A virus H1N1, also known as swine flu, which killed as many as 284,000 people globally. But wealthy countries bought up virtually all the supplies of the vaccine. After the World Health Organization appealed for donations, Australia, Canada, the United States, and six other countries agreed to share ten percent of their vaccines with poorer countries, but only after determining that their remaining supplies would be sufficient to meet domestic needs.
Vaccine allocation resembles the classic game theory problem known as “the prisoner’s dilemma.”
Nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations have adopted two limited strategies to reduce the risk of such vaccine nationalism in the case of COVID-19. First, CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nongovernmental vaccine partnership known as Gavi, and other donors have developed plans to shorten the queue for vaccines by investing early in the manufacturing and distribution capacity for promising candidates, even before their safety and efficacy have been established. The hope is that doing so will reduce delays in ramping up supplies in poor countries. This approach is sensible but competes with better-resourced national initiatives to pool scientific expertise and augment manufacturing capacity. What is more, shortening the queue in this manner may exclude middle-income countries such as Pakistan, South Africa, and most Latin American states, which do not meet the criteria for receiving donor assistance. It would also fail to address the fact that the governments of manufacturing countries might seize more vaccine stocks than they need, regardless of the suffering elsewhere.
An alternative approach is to try to eliminate the queue altogether. More than a dozen countries and philanthropies in initial pledges of $8 billion to the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, an initiative dedicated to the rapid development and equitable deployment of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for COVID-19. The ACT Accelerator, however, has so far failed to attract major vaccine-manufacturing states, including the United States and India. In the United States, the Trump administration has instead devoted nearly $10 billion to Operation Warp Speed, a program designed to deliver hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines by January 2021—but only to Americans. Meanwhile, Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, has stated that “at least initially,” any vaccine the company produces will go to India’s 1.3 billion people. Other vaccine developers have made similar statements, pledging that host governments or advanced purchasers will get the early doses if supplies are limited.
Given the lack of confidence that any cooperative effort would be able to overcome such obstacles, more and more countries have tried to secure their own supplies. France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands formed the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance to jointly negotiate with vaccine developers and producers. That alliance is now part of a larger European Commission effort to negotiate with manufacturers on behalf of EU member states to arrange for advance contracts and to reserve doses of promising candidates. In May, Xi told attendees at the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, that if Beijing succeeds in developing a vaccine, it will share the results with the world, but he did not say when. In June, Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, expressed skepticism about that claim and told The Wall Street Journal that he expects that the Chinese government will use its vaccines “predominantly for the very large populace of China.” This summer, the United States bought up virtually all the supplies of remdesivir, one of the first drugs proven to work against COVID-19, leaving none for the United Kingdom, the EU, or most of the rest of the world for three months.
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
Global cooperation on vaccine allocation would be the most efficient way to disrupt the spread of the virus. It would also spur economies, avoid supply chain disruptions, and prevent unnecessary geopolitical conflict. Yet if all other vaccine-manufacturing countries are being nationalists, no one will have an incentive to buck the trend. In this respect, vaccine allocation resembles the classic game theory problem known as “the prisoner’s dilemma”—and countries are very much acting like the proverbial prisoner.
“If we have learned anything from the coronavirus and swine flu H1N1 epidemic of 2009,” said Peter Navarro, the globalization skeptic whom President Donald Trump appointed in March to lead the U.S. supply chain response to COVID-19, “it is that we cannot necessarily depend on other countries, even close allies, to supply us with needed items, from face masks to vaccines.” Navarro has done his best to make sure everyone else learns this lesson, as well: shortly after he made that statement, the White House slapped export restrictions on U.S.-manufactured surgical masks, respirators, and gloves, including to many poor countries.
By failing to develop a plan to coordinate the mass manufacture and distribution of vaccines, many governments—including the U.S. government—are writing off the potential for global cooperation. Such cooperation remains possible, but it would require a large number of countries to make an enforceable commitment to sharing in order to overcome leaders’ fears of domestic opposition.
The time horizon for most political leaders is short, especially for those facing an imminent election. Many remain unconvinced that voters would understand that the long-term health and economic consequences of the coronavirus spreading unabated abroad are greater than the immediate threat posed by their or their loved ones’ having to wait to be vaccinated at home. And to politicians, the potential for opposition at home may seem like a bigger risk than outrage abroad over their hoarding supplies, especially if it is for a limited time and other countries are seen as likely to do the same.
French President Emmanuel Macron tours a vaccine laboratory in June 2020
Laurent Cipriani / Reuters
Fortunately, there are ways to weaken this disincentive to cooperate. First, politicians might be more willing to forgo immunizing their entire populations in order to share vaccines with other countries if there were reliable research indicating the number and allocation of doses needed to achieve critical public health objectives at home—such as protecting health-care workers, military personnel, and nursing home staffs; reducing the spread to the elderly and other vulnerable populations; and breaking transmission chains. Having that information would allow elected leaders to pledge to share vaccine supplies with other countries only if they have enough at home to reach those goals. This type of research has long been part of national planning for immunization campaigns. It has revealed, for example, that because influenza vaccines inducea relatively weak immune response in the elderly, older people are much better protected if the vaccination of children, who are the chief spreaders, is prioritized. Such research does not yet exist for COVID-19 but should be part of the expedited clinical trials that companies are currently conducting for vaccine candidates.
A framework agreement on vaccine sharing would also be more likely to succeed if it were undertaken through an established international forum and linked to preventing the export bans and seizures that have disrupted COVID-19-related medical supply chains. Baby steps toward such an agreement have already been taken by a working group of G-20 trade ministers, but that effort needs to be expanded to include public health officials. The result should be a COVID-19 vaccine trade and investment agreement, which should include an investment fund to purchase vaccines in advance and allocate them, once they have been proved to be safe and effective, on the basis of public health need rather than the size of any individual country’s purse. Governments would pay into the investment fund on a subscription basis, with escalating, nonrefundable payments tied to the number of vaccine doses they secured and other milestones of progress. Participation of the poorest countries should be heavily subsidized or free. Such an agreement could leverage the international organizations that already exist for the purchase and distribution of vaccines and medications for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The agreement should include an enforceable commitment on the part of participating countries to not place export restrictions on supplies of vaccines and related materials destined for other participating countries.
The agreement could stipulate that if a minimum number of vaccine-producing countries did not participate, it would not enter into force, reducing the risk to early signatories. Some manufacturers would be hesitant to submit to a global allocation plan unless the participating governments committed to indemnification, allowed the use of product liability insurance, or agreed to a capped injury-compensation program to mitigate the manufacturers’ risk. Linking the agreement to existing networks of regulators, such as the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities, might help ease such concerns and would also help create a more transparent pathway to the licensing of vaccines, instill global confidence, reduce development costs, and expedite access in less remunerative markets.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN HURT (AND HELP) YOU
Even if policymakers can be convinced about the benefits of sharing, cooperation will remain a nonstarter if there is nothing to prevent countries from reneging on an agreement and seizing local supplies of a vaccine once it has been proved to be safe and effective. Cooperation will ensue only when countries are convinced that it can be enforced.
The key thing to understand is that allocating COVID-19 vaccines will not be a one-off experience: multiple safe and effective vaccines may eventually emerge, each with different strengths and benefits. If one country were to deny others access to an early vaccine, those other countries could be expected to reciprocate by withholding potentially more effective vaccines they might develop later. And game theory makes clear that, even for the most selfish players, incentives for cooperation improve when the game is repeated and players can credibly threaten quick and effective punishment for cheating.
Which vaccine turns out to be most effective may vary by the target patient population and setting. Some may be more suitable for children or for places with limited refrigeration. Yet because the various vaccine candidates still in development require different ingredients and different types of manufacturing facilities, no one country, not even the United States, will be able to build all the facilities that may later prove useful.
Today’s vaccine supply chains are unavoidably global.
Today’s vaccine supply chains are also unavoidably global. The country lucky enough to manufacture the first proven vaccine is unlikely to have all the inputs necessary to scale up and sustain production. For example, a number of vaccine candidates use the same adjuvant, a substance produced from a natural compound extracted from the Chilean soapbark tree. This compound comes mostly from Chile and is processed in Sweden. Although Chile and Sweden do not manufacture vaccines, they would be able to rely on their control of the limited supply of this input to ensure access to the eventual output. Vaccine supply chains abound with such situations. Because the science has not settled on which vaccine will work best, it is impossible to fully anticipate and thus prepare for all the needed inputs.
The Trump administration, as well as some in Congress, has blamed the United States’ failure to produce vast supplies of everything it needs to respond to COVID-19 on “dependency.” But when it comes to creating an enforceable international vaccine agreement, complex cross-border supply chains are a feature, not a bug. Even countries without vaccine-manufacturing capacity can credibly threaten to hold up input supplies to the United States or other vaccine-manufacturing countries if they engage in vaccine nationalism.
The Trump administration was reminded of this dynamic in April, when the president invoked the Defense Production Act and threatened to ban exports to Canada and Mexico of respirators made by 3M. Had Trump followed through, Canada could have retaliated by halting exports of hospital-grade pulp that U.S. companies needed to produce surgical masks and gowns. Or Canada could have stopped Canadian nurses and hospital workers from crossing the border into Michigan, where they were desperately needed to treat American patients. Mexico, for its part, could have cut off the supply of motors and other components that U.S. companies needed to make ventilators. The White House seemed unaware of these potential vulnerabilities. Once it got up to speed, the administration backed off.
Of course, the Trump administration should have already learned that trading partners—even historical allies—are willing and able to swiftly and effectively retaliate against one another if someone breaks an agreement. In early 2018, this was apparently an unknown—at least to Navarro. Explaining why Trump was planning to put tariffs on steel and aluminum, Navarro reassured Americans: “I don’t believe there is any country in the world that is going to retaliate,” he declared. After Trump imposed the duties, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, along with China, Russia, and Turkey, all immediately retaliated. The EU went through a similar learning experience in March. The European Commission originally imposed a broad set of export restrictions on personal protective equipment. It was forced to quickly scale them back after realizing that cutting off non-EU members, such as Norway and Switzerland, could imperil the flow of parts that companies based in the EU needed to supply the EU's own member states with medical supplies.
American and European policymakers now understand—or at least should understand—that what they don’t know about cross-border flows can hurt them. Paradoxically, this lack of information may help convince skeptical policymakers to maintain the interdependence needed to fight the pandemic. Not knowing what they don’t know reduces the risk that governments will renege on a deal tomorrow that is in their own best interest to sign on to today.
THE POWER OF FOMO
When the oxygen masks drop in a depressurizing plane, they drop at the same time in every part of the plane because time is of the essence and because that is the best way to ensure the safety of all onboard. The same is true of the global, equitable allocation of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19.
Vaccine nationalism is not just morally and ethically reprehensible: it is contrary to every country’s economic, strategic, and health interests. If rich, powerful countries choose that path, there will be no winners—ultimately, every country will be a loser. The world is not doomed to learn this the hard way, however. All the necessary tools exist to forge an agreement that would encourage cooperation and limit the appeal of shortsighted “my country first” approaches.
But time is running out: the closer the world gets to the day when the first proven vaccines emerge, the less time there is to set up an equitable, enforceable system for allocating them. As a first step, a coalition of political leaders from countries representing at least 50 percent of global vaccine-manufacturing capacity must get together and instruct their public health officials and trade ministers to get out of their silos and work together. Combining forces, they should hammer out a short-term agreement that articulates the conditions for sharing, including with the legions of poorer, nonmanufacturing countries, and makes clear what would happen to participants who subsequently reneged and undertook vaccine nationalism. Such a step would get the ball rolling and convince even more of the manufacturing countries to sign on. The fear of missing out on vaccine access, in the event their countries’ own vaccine candidates fail, may be what it takes to pressure even today’s most reluctant leaders to cooperate.
Ano de 2020 trouxe a pandemia, que produzirá a pior recessão da história da região
Latinoamerica21)
O ano de 2019 foi um annus horribilis para a América Latina. Junto com uma acentuada desaceleração e um crescimento econômico magro que apenas alcançou 0,1%, a região experimentou uma multiplicação de mobilizações e protestos sociais que afetaram tanto os governos de esquerda quanto os de direita, em um contexto de uma reconfiguração –através de eleições– do mapa político da região.
Mas o ano 2020 trouxe a pandemia que, apesar das diferenças nacionais, aprofundou algumas das tendências e semelhanças existentes, e acentuou algumas características estruturais que constituem o pano de fundo dos múltiplos desafios que a região enfrentará para entrar em uma fase de pós-pandemia. A CEPAL antecipou que, como consequência da pandemia, se produzirá a pior recessão da história da região, com uma contração do PIB de 5,3% em 2020 e o aumento do índice de pobreza de 30,3% para 34,7%. O Banco Mundial mostrou que a contração poderia chegar a mais de 7%, como parte da pior crise da região desde 1901.
Sob o título genérico de Informe Iberoamérica 2020, um documento recente apresentado pela Fundación Alternativas de Madrid aponta os maus momentos que a região atravessa e atravessaria. O relatório aponta algumas dessas características, como a desigualdade pré-existente que afeta a estabilidade política da região, o aumento das demandas e expectativas associadas aos avanços sociais dos anos anteriores, que respondem a lutas redistributivas, e demandas por melhores políticas públicas por parte de diversos setores sociais.
O relatório também destaca que este é o pior desempenho econômico dos últimos sessenta anos, o que agrava os problemas estruturais da região associados à baixa diversificação produtiva e à excessiva dependência de matérias-primas (e a demanda da China pelas mesmas). Esta situação é agravada por uma crise de representação que marca retrocessos democráticos associados tanto a baixos níveis de confiança nas instituições políticas quanto ao desencanto (e consequente deslegitimação) em relação à capacidade das elites políticas e das lideranças existentes de atender às demandas dos cidadãos.
A polarização política gerada por esta combinação fatídica de fatores não apenas alimenta as fraturas ideológicas, mas também impacta na capacidade de moldar respostas regionais diante de um ambiente internacional que, por sua vez, está passando por uma transição complexa. A rivalidade entre os Estados Unidos e a China não é o único eixo deste processo. A crescente incidência de atores extrarregionais faz da América Latina e do Caribe, apesar de sua aparente natureza periférica, um campo de conflitos e lutas geopolíticas e geoeconômicas que tornam sua inserção internacional mais complexa. Além dessas duas potências, Rússia, Irã, Turquia e, mais recentemente, a Índia estão fazendo incursões na região, além dos tradicionais laços com a União Europeia e o Japão.
Três fatores adicionais –e eventualmente relacionados entre si– tendem a tornar a crise multinível na região ainda mais complexa. Primeiro, existe a corrupção das elites que tende a permear diferentes níveis das respectivas sociedades. O reaparecimento dos militares como um ator político, processo que ameaça as instituições democráticas já enfraquecidas e dá origem a várias modalidades autoritárias. E a expansão do crime organizado em suas múltiplas encarnações, do tráfico de drogas ao tráfico humano.
Neste contexto, ao desafio de lidar com a pandemia se somam obstáculos difíceis. Os países devem enfrentar a recessão e a crise econômica que afetam tanto os setores mais vulneráveis quanto a sociedade como um todo. A resiliência da democracia e de suas instituições enfraquecidas deve ser reforçada através da promoção de estratégias e políticas públicas que demanda a cidadania. E, finalmente, uma coordenação regional mais eficiente deve ser desenvolvida para enfrentar os desafios globais e para promover a inserção internacional com maiores graus de autonomia e de diversificação.
Desafios do mal momento que exigem acordos sociais complexos e sofisticados e consensos regionais, em uma América Latina devastada pela pandemia, mas também pela polarização social e política, e pela atomização regional.
Andrés Serbin é cientista político e presidente-executivo da Coordenação Regional de Pesquisa Econômica e Social (CRIES). Ele é membro pleno do Conselho Argentino de Relações Internacionais (CARI) e ex-diretor de Assuntos Caribenhos do Sistema Econômico Latino-Americano (SELA).
www.latinoamerica21.com, um projeto plural que dissemina diferentes visões da América Latina.
Right now, polls say Joe Biden has a healthy lead over President Trump. But we’ve been here before (cue 2016), and the polls were, frankly, wrong. One man, however, was not. The historian Allan Lichtman was the lonely forecaster who predicted Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 — and also prophesied the president would be impeached. That’s two for two. But Professor Lichtman’s record goes much deeper. In 1980, he developed a presidential prediction model that retrospectively accounted for 120 years of U.S. election history. Over the past four decades, his system has accurately called presidential victors, from Ronald Reagan in ’84 to, well, Mr. Trump in 2016.
In the video Op-Ed above, Professor Lichtman walks us through his system, which identifies 13 “keys” to winning the White House. Each key is a binary statement: true or false. And if six or more keys are false, the party in the White House is on its way out.
So what do the keys predict for 2020? To learn that, you’ll have to watch the video.
Allan Lichtman (@AllanLichtman) is a professor of history at American University.
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A Petrobras valia ontem a preço de mercado R$ 300 bilhões. O auxílio emergencial custa o dobro disso em um ano. Se fosse mantido por doze meses, seriam R$ 600 bilhões. Vinte vezes mais do que o Bolsa Família, que no mesmo período consome R$ 30 bilhões. O auxílio que tem tal peso nas contas é o que encanta o presidente Bolsonaro. O ministro Paulo Guedes oferece um prêmio de consolação: o Renda Brasil. Ele será insuficiente para manter a sensação dada a quem recebeu o auxílio nesta pandemia.
Esse é o centro de um dos dilemas de Paulo Guedes. O auxílio reduziu o peso da recessão e aumentou a popularidade do presidente. Contudo, tem um custo impagável. O outro dilema são os investimentos pedidos pelos militares e as obras defendidas pelos ministros setoriais. Separadas podem ter boas justificativas, todas juntas serão a pá de cal no programa que o ministro vendeu ao mercado como aquele que seria aplicado durante o governo Bolsonaro. Resta pouca coisa do programa original. Não foi feita a privatização, a reforma administrativa mofa na gaveta presidencial, a capitalização foi derrubada pelo Congresso, a abertura comercial virou um acordo com a União Europeia de incerta homologação. Se descarrilhar o gasto, nada restará.
Agosto é mês em que todo ministro da economia fica sob pressão porque fecha-se o orçamento e cada área quer evitar cortes. Desta vez é pior porque a situação é muito mais complicada. A pandemia elevou espantosamente os desafios fiscais do país. Luta-se pelo gasto imediato e pela despesa do ano que vem.
Há uma velha lei da selva brasiliense. Toda vez que o presidente tem que dizer que alguém está prestigiado é porque este alguém está sob ataque. Quem está forte não precisa ser fortalecido. No caso de Paulo Guedes, ele sentiu necessidade de reforçar a si mesmo e disse que Bolsonaro tem confiança nele e ele tem confiança no presidente.
O maior ataque ao ministro vem do próprio presidente. Guedes pode vencer as quedas de braço parciais contra os ministros Rogério Marinho, Tarcísio de Freitas ou até o general Braga Netto. Mas não será possível vencer um presidente em campanha eleitoral, enamorado de si mesmo, e com ouvidos abertos aos que prometem que todo aquele eleitorado será dele se ele continuar gastando, dando auxílios e inaugurando obras, mesmo as que não foram feitas por ele.
Bolsonaro não sabe governar. Sua agenda se resume à defesa dos clubes de tiro, onde seus filhos gostam de brincar, ao desregramento do trânsito, às vantagens corporativas de militares e policiais. Presidentes assim em épocas difíceis costumam criar falsos adversários, mentir sobre a realidade e entrar em campanha. Bolsonaro usou as três técnicas e com elas tenta encobrir sua incapacidade administrativa.
Entre Bolsonaro e seu objetivo há o tempo e os limites dos cofres públicos. Mesmo que o ministro da Economia aceite ceder, ele sabe que não pode ser por muito tempo. O Renda Brasil não terá o mesmo valor, nem a mesma amplitude do auxílio. Vai decepcionar muita gente. Para ter recursos precisará acabar com benefícios que tem defensores. O abono salarial, recebido por trabalhadores que ganham até dois pisos salariais, o seguro defeso, dado a pescadores em época de desova dos peixes, e a farmácia popular, que reduz o preço dos remédios para determinada faixa da população. Para acabar com esses programas será preciso travar batalhas difíceis.
Paulo Guedes é um defensor dos cofres públicos incomum. Ele cede mais facilmente aos argumentos do presidente. Bolsonaro pode dizer a ele que em 2023, depois de se reeleger, ele então privatizará, diminuirá o tamanho do Estado, abrirá a economia, mas que agora não dá porque precisa lutar contra os inimigos da esquerda que atacam seu governo. O ministro é inteligente, mas cairá nesta conversa facilmente.
Entretanto, chegará o dia em que o mercado verá que o rei está nu. Bastará olhar os números. A despesa primária este ano está indo para R$ 1,98 trilhão, o que é 27,6% do PIB. No ano que vem, terá que ser reduzida para 19,6% do PIB, em 2022, para 19,2%. Isso acontecerá por força do teto de gastos. Parte do governo quer que essa queda seja mais lenta. Mas a dívida está indo para 98% do PIB. E os juros futuros já ligaram o pisca-alerta.
