FMI: guerra comercial EUA-China ameaça crescimento mundial em 2019

IstoÉ Dinheiro, 23/05/19

O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) advertiu, nesta quinta-feira (23), que a escalada da guerra comercial entre Estados Unidos e China ameaça o crescimento global em 2019 - AFP

O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) advertiu, nesta quinta-feira (23), que a escalada da guerra comercial entre Estados Unidos e China “ameaçará” o crescimento global em 2019, o que minará a confiança e aumentará os preços para os consumidores.

“Os consumidores nos Estados Unidos e na China são inequivocamente os perdedores das tensões comerciais”, disse a economista-chefe do FMI, Gita Gopinath, em uma publicação do blog, refutando diretamente a afirmação do presidente dos EUA, Donald Trump, de que as tarifas são pagas pela China e geram receita para os Estados Unidos.

A nova direita europeia quer criar uma academia do conservadorismo mundial na Italia - The Economist

A nova direita europeia é uma mistura da velha direita – sim, existem remanescentes de antigos partidos fascistas e até saudosistas do hitlerismo, pois sempre os há – com novos reacionários, aqueles que "reacionam" contra os imigrantes, sobretudo os islâmicos, achando que estes vão "conspurcar" as sagradas tradições do cristianismo europeu, aquele mesmo que, em tempos recuados, promovia pogroms, perseguições e até massacres indiscriminados contra judeus, considerados os "assassinos de Cristo". Ainda não mudaram tanto assim as consciências, ou as "ignorâncias", em certos meios...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Steve Bannon’s monastic academy denies monkey business

Donald Trump’s ex-strategist dismisses allegations of a forged letter as “dust kicked up by the left”

The Economist, May 22nd 2019

Donald Trump’s ex-strategist dismisses allegations of a forged letter as “dust kicked up by the left”

A PLAN BY Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, to launch an alt-right academy in an Italian monastery now risks being scotched by the authorities. Evidence has emerged that a key document used to secure tenancy of the property was forged.

Mr Bannon is paying the €100,000-a-year ($111,000) rent on a former Carthusian monastery, the Certosa di Trisulti, in the mountains east of Rome. The property belongs to the state. But in February 2018 Italy’s arts and heritage ministry granted a 19-year lease to a Catholic non-profit organisation then based in Rome, the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI), of which Mr Bannon is a trustee. Two official bodies are investigating the concession: the Attorney General’s department and the regional auditors’ court in Lazio, the region around Rome in which the monastery is situated. An official says the ministry is not ruling out revoking the lease.

Mr Bannon has described the Academy for the Judaeo-Christian West that the institute plans to open at its monastery in the autumn as a “gladiator school for cultural warriors”. Benjamin Harnwell, the director of the DHI, says that his institute will offer a master’s course that includes teaching in philosophy, theology, history and economics. Mr Bannon will be personally responsible for additional tuition in the practical aspects of political leadership.

The DHI took over the monastery following a competitive tender. Accompanying the institute’s bid was a business plan and a letter endorsing it, apparently provided by the Gibraltar branch of a Danish financial institution, Jyske Bank. But on May 7th La Repubblica, an Italian daily, reported a statement by Jyske Bank declaring the letter to be fraudulent. The managing director of Jyske Bank in Gibraltar, Lars Jensen, confirms the statement. “It is a fraudulent letter, put together by I don’t know who,” he told The Economist this week. The signature purported to be that of “a lady who hasn’t been in the bank for years. Her role was that of an assistant and in that letter she’s a director or something like that. So it is obviously fraudulent,” he said.

Mr Harnwell admits that news of the bank’s statement “hit me sideways”. But Mr Bannon told The Economist that “Everything actually is totally legitimate…all of this stuff is just dust being kicked up by the left.” The business plan, however, was crucial to the success of DHI’s bid, which the ministry assessed using a points system. To qualify for the tender, the Institute needed at least 60 points. It secured 72.6. But of those, 17.8 were awarded for its business plan. So if that plan is ruled invalid because the “letter of certification” from its bank is found to have been forged, the authorities could revoke the lease.

The controversy over the DHI’s business plan is only the latest of several blows to the institute in recent months. Since December, the DHI’s chairman, Luca Volontè, a former Christian Democrat politician, has been on trial in Milan, charged with taking a €2.4m bribe from private and public sources in Azerbaijan. Mr Volontè was allegedly paid for helping to block criticism of human-rights abuses in Azerbaijan while a member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. Mr Volontè denies any wrongdoing. 

Mr Harnwell founded the DHI in 2008 and won support from a variety of prominent Catholics. They included conservatives such as Austin Ruse, president of the Centre for Family and Human Rights in America, and liberals like Lord Alton, a British peer and former Liberal Democrat politician. But Mr Harnwell admits that, as Mr Bannon has taken an increasingly visible role, several of his liberal members and officials, including Lord Alton, have quit. The latest to go was a high-ranking Vatican prelate, Cardinal Peter Turkson.

As Mr Harnwell readily agrees, the Institute’s stewardship of the Certosa, or Charterhouse, of Trisulti has brought with it daunting responsibilities. Founded in the early 13th century amid woodlands in a part of Italy renowned for its hermits and mystics, abbeys and convents, the complex covers 86,000 square metres—the size of 12 football pitches. It houses a watermill, a herbal pharmacy, an elaborately frescoed church and a topiary maze.

But many of its roofs are in urgent need of repair, and there is water infiltration in several places. The DHI committed itself in its bid to spend an additional €1.9m on restoration. Mr Bannon says that more than the row over the lease, the bigger concern “is making sure I can pull together all the resources needed to restore the monastery to what it should be”.

The local authority has presented a further challenge by demanding €86,000 a year in property tax and for waste collection. Mr Bannon remains unfazed by all this. “I couldn’t be more excited,” he says. More excitement is probably to come.

Itamaraty-Apex: continuam as confusoes - Ricardo Della Coletta (FSP)

Araújo assinou documento para contratar funcionário sem diploma com salário de até R$ 34 mil

Objetivo seria nomeação de ex-candidato do PSL na Apex; Itamaraty chama documento de 'propostas de alteração'

Ricardo Della Coletta

FSP, 21.mai.2019 às 18h36

O ministro das Relações Exteriores, Ernesto Araújo, assinou documento em março que permitiria a contratação de pessoas sem curso superior para altos cargos da Apex-Brasil (Agência Brasileira de Promoção de Exportações e Investimentos).

Com a alteração no Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários da agência, quem não tem diploma universitário poderia ser empregado em postos com salários de até R$ 34 mil.

Pelas regras vigentes, as vagas para cargos de confiança —que não precisam de concurso público— só podem ser preenchidas por candidatos com "ensino superior completo, reconhecido pelo MEC (Ministério da Educação)."

Araújo estabeleceu no documento obtido pela Folha que o diploma universitário pode ser dispensado caso o indicado tenha "experiência comprovada de, no mínimo, quatro anos em atividades correlatas ao cargo". 

Não há qualquer menção sobre como essa experiência deve ser verificada. Vinculada ao Ministério das Relações Exteriores, a Apex atua na promoção de produtos e serviços brasileiros no exterior. 

Para tentar mudar as regras de admissão na agência, o chanceler utilizou seus poderes como presidente do Conselho Deliberativo da agência para tomar a decisão ad referendum do colegiado. Isso significa que, caso fosse protocolado em cartório —o que não ocorreu—, o novo plano de carreiras começaria a valer imediatamente, mesmo antes da análise dos conselheiros. 

Interlocutores que acompanharam o caso na Apex afirmaram à Folha, sob condição de anonimato por temerem represálias, que as mudanças das regras foram feitas para permitir a contratação do produtor agropecuário Paulo Vilela, que se candidatou a deputado federal pelo PSL em 2018, mas não conseguiu se eleger.

Ao ser convidado para assumir a gerência de agronegócios da Apex, no começo do ano, Vilela não foi admitido por ter grau de escolaridade aquém do exigido para o posto. Segundo o sistema de candidaturas do TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral), Vilela tem ensino médio completo. 

A Folha tentou contato com Vilela nesta terça-feira (21), mas ele não respondeu às ligações. No início de abril, no entanto, o produtor afirmou, ao jornal Correio Braziliense, que havia sido convidado para ocupar a gerência da Apex pela ex-diretora de negócios Letícia Catelani.

Na mesma entrevista, contou que chegou a trabalhar informalmente e em caráter "voluntário" na agência no início de 2019, despachando de um café em Brasília.

Pessoas com conhecimento do caso confirmaram à Folha que Vilela trabalhou informalmente na Apex durante quase dois meses, sem nunca ser oficialmente contratado. 

Procurado, o Itamaraty reconheceu que houve “propostas de alteração” no Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários da entidade, mas ressaltou que elas não foram adotadas. 

“Não houve alteração no mecanismo de seleção e contratação de pessoal na Apex. Houve propostas de alteração, que não foram implementadas. Assim sendo, não houve qualquer consequência jurídica relativa ao documento que a reportagem menciona, por ele não ser válido”, afirmou o Itamaraty. 

A flexibilização que consta no documento assinado por Araújo afeta desde cargos menores até os de gerência. O documento também reduz os requisitos de admissão para os postos de supervisor e coordenador, além dos de assessoramento das principais estruturas da Apex.

De acordo com o Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários assinado por Araújo, a remuneração inicial de um gerente da agência é de R$ 28.439, mas o valor pode chegar a R$ 34.127. 

Um assessor da presidência da Apex, por sua vez, tem salário inicial de R$ 23.095. O teto é de R$ 26.559, ainda segundo o mesmo plano de carreiras.

A Folha procurou a Apex-Brasil na segunda-feira (20) para comentar o caso. Inicialmente, a agência informou que "não houve, este ano, assinatura de qualquer resolução ou ato administrativo que tenha modificado o Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários."

Nesta terça-feira, informados de que o documento obtido pela reportagem da Folha contém a assinatura de Araújo, a Apex enviou nova manifestação.

"Não houve, este ano, qualquer resolução ou ato administrativo que tenha modificado o Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários da Apex-Brasil. Informamos ainda que a versão vigente do plano é datada de 16 de outubro de 2018", diz a agência.

Após a publicação da reportagem, a ex-diretora de negócios da Apex Letícia Catelani defendeu as alterações no plano de cargos da agência.

De acordo com ela, o objetivo era adequar a Apex a novas normativas do governo que colocam como “critério para contratação a nível federal experiência profissional e não mais a necessidade exclusiva de nível superior”. ​

Não é a primeira vez que Ernesto Araújo utilizou sua condição de presidente do Conselho Deliberativo da Apex para tentar alterar, de forma unilateral, normas internas da entidade. 

No início de abril, o chanceler realizou uma manobra estatutária para retirar poderes do então presidente da agência, o embaixador Mario Vilalva, e transferi-los para seus indicados no órgão: Letícia Catelani e o ex-diretor de gestão corporativa, Márcio Coimbra. 

Vilalva disse à época que o ato do chanceler foi feito “na calada da noite” e acusou Araújo de falta de lealdade. Ele foi demitido da presidência da Apex um dia depois de dar as declarações. 

Quando Araújo assinou a nova versão do Plano de Cargos, Carreiras e Salários, em março, a Apex ainda era presidida por Vilalva. 

Procurado, o ex-presidente da agência disse que tampouco foi informado da intenção do chanceler de flexibilizar as regras de contratação. 

Desde a saída de Vilalva, o núcleo militar do governo intensificou a pressão sobre o presidente Jair Bolsonaro para que tanto Catelani quanto Coimbra deixassem a agência do governo. 

Para estancar a crise, o presidente nomeou no início de maio o almirante Sergio Ricardo Segovia Barbosa para o comando da agência. 

Como primeiro ato, o militar destituiu os dois diretores dos seus postos —Coimbra havia pedido demissão mais de uma semana antes, mas ainda aguardava o desligamento.

A disputa interna na Apex gerou forte desgaste para o chanceler e fez com que ele perdesse poder dentro do órgão. 

Tanto que, após a indicação de Segovia para o comando da agência, Araújo foi obrigado a revogar sua decisão anterior de mudar o estatuto da Apex, restituindo os poderes da presidência.  

Os ciclos economicos nos EUA: uma recessao a cada sete meses - Heather Boushey (Brookings)

Recession ready: Fiscal policies to stabilize the American economy

Heather Boushey

Brookings Institution, Thursday, May 16, 2019

Introduction

A constant in the history of economics is that countries encounter recessions. Since World War II, the U.S. economy has been in a recession for about one of every seven months and for at least one month in roughly one-third of the years over that period. Recessions have many causes—financial markets crashing, monetary policy tightening, consumers cutting spending, firms lowering investment, oil prices shifting—but at some point, economic expansions end and the economy begins to contract.

This volume lays out a set of changes to fiscal programs to improve the policy response to a recession in the United States. It starts from three main premises, which are described in more detail in the following chapter:

1. First, recessions are costly. Individuals lose jobs and income. The economy wastes resources and can sometimes even face a permanently lower output path.
2. Second, fiscal policy is an effective aspect of the government’s part of a response to a recession. Expansionary fiscal policy can increase output; it can increase the utilization of resources; and in particular, when monetary policy has reduced interest rates to zero, it can meaningfully shift the economy’s trajectory upwards.
3. Third, increasing the automatic nature of fiscal policy would be helpful. Increasing spending quickly could lead to a shallower and shorter recession.

Using evidence-based automatic “triggers” to alter the course of spending would be a more-effective way to deliver stimulus to the economy than waiting for policymakers to act. Such well-crafted automatic stabilizers are the best way to deliver fiscal stimulus in a timely, targeted, and temporary way. There will likely still be a need for discretionary policy; but by automating certain parts of the response, the United States can improve its macroeconomic outcomes.

The first chapter lays out the case for automatic stabilizers in detail. An important point is that we have sufficient data to discern when a recession is starting in real time, which is a solid foundation for implementing automatic stabilizers. Some stabilizers respond as underlying fundamentals shift—for example, regular unemployment insurance spending rises as more workers lose their jobs, so policymakers do not need to switch on this policy. But one can also tell when a recession is unfolding and more-robust measures are necessary—such as extended unemployment benefits. The policy rule articulated by Claudia Sahm in this volume would generally go into effect within a few months of the start of a recession. A rule like this is both quite timely and far more effective at signaling recessions than other metrics. In a subsequent chapter, Matt Fiedler, Jason Furman, and Wilson Powell III suggest triggers that could be used at the state level as well.

Although automatic stabilizers do exist, they are relatively small in the United States compared with those in other countries. At the same time, there have been frequent discretionary policy changes made in the face of economic downturns to push more money into the economy via tax cuts, direct payments, or increased spending. In the second chapter of this volume, Louise Sheiner and Michael Ng highlight the extent of the U.S. budget’s cyclicality over time. Whereas federal taxes provide a substantial amount of automatic stabilization—and discretionary federal policy is also strongly countercyclical—state and local fiscal policy is slightly procyclical.

The remaining six chapters of the book make concrete proposals for adjusting U.S. fiscal policy to expand the implementation of automatic stabilizers and make them more effective. The first two proposals entail creating new policies that are based on evidence from discretionary policies used in prior recessions. Both aim to avoid damaging contractionary responses to recessions, first on the part of households, and second on the part of state governments.

In the third chapter, Claudia Sahm suggests making an automatic direct payment to qualified households during economic downturns. Such payments have been used before in a variety of ways, through either temporary tax cuts or direct payments, but not in an automated fashion. Sahm demonstrates the effectiveness of such programs and shows how an automated set of payments could have been made earlier and more predictably than discretionary payments in the past. Given the large share of consumption in the U.S. economy and the propensity for consumption to fall during a recession, such a policy could be an important way to combat any sizable fall in demand in the economy.

In the fourth chapter, Matt Fiedler, Jason Furman, and Wilson Powell III suggest a way to provide funds to states to avoid sharp, procyclical cutbacks at the state and local levels. During a recession, the federal government is in principle able to counteract declines in economic activity by increasing spending, even while revenues decline—making up the difference with additional borrowing. However, a large portion of U.S. public spending occurs at the state and local levels, where borrowing is much more difficult and declines in tax revenues generally lead to declines in spending. Fiedler, Furman, and Powell address this concern in the context of Federal Medical Assistance Percentage formula funds, which were adjusted during the Great Recession and could be automatically adjusted to provide state-level fiscal support during future recessions.

There are also several current programs that could be adjusted to improve their effectiveness as automatic stabilizers. In the fifth chapter, Andrew Haughwout proposes setting up and maintaining a list of potential transportation infrastructure projects whose funding could be ramped up during downturns. Though Congress has often used transportation infrastructure as a method to generate spending during a downturn, this process could instead be automated by changing the spending rules for the BUILD program (formerly the TIGER grant program) so that the federal government would fund more projects during downturns and fewer during a boom. Because BUILD is constantly awarding funds, states would have projects ready to be funded and would be familiar with the funding stream, allowing for timely spending.

The programs that make up the social safety net constitute an important set of automatic stabilizers in the current U.S. policy mix. Because these programs provide resources to people with little or no income, the need for the benefits they provide rises along with the unemployment rate. As currently implemented, unemployment benefit spending and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) spending automatically rise as more people are unemployed or as their incomes fall. These programs, along with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—which is currently capped in nominal dollars by federal law—could be restructured in ways that would help them accomplish their core goals and serve as better stabilizers for the economy.

The unemployment insurance (UI) system is a core part of the U.S. response to both individual employment loss and overall labor market disruptions. By insuring workers against job loss, UI partially protects them from important risks while also mitigating the decline in consumption that occurs during a recession. In the sixth chapter, Gabriel Chodorow-Reich and John Coglianese propose changes to improve the take-up of UI, increase its benefits during recessions, and make its extended benefit formulas more responsive to changes in the labor market. These changes would enhance the already sizable role that UI plays in stabilization policy.

After federal welfare reform of 1996, the federal program that provides cash to families in need was block-granted, and funds were capped at their 1997 level. The newly created TANF program included a small emergency fund, which has been insufficient to allow TANF to function as needed for families or provide any cushion to the economy in a downturn. In the seventh chapter, Indivar Dutta-Gupta suggests shifting the structure of TANF so that it can expand in downturns as need rises and thus play a countercyclical role both for households and the economy. He also reviews the experience of TANF job subsidies enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and proposes expanding this approach, explaining how employment subsidies can play an important role as part of an overall policy response to economic downturns.

SNAP is the nation’s most-important food support program—and it is also an automatic stabilizer that supports the economy during downturns. In the eighth chapter, Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach propose reforms to SNAP that would make it a more-effective automatic stabilizer and increase its ability to protect families during downturns. In particular, they focus on ensuring that families in need of food support are not tied to work requirements that may be impossible to meet in an economic downturn; they also suggest increasing SNAP benefits during a recession.

Overall, this set of proposals builds on the best available evidence and analysis. They use programs that have been effective parts of U.S. fiscal policy and have either been an important part of discretionary or automatic spending in prior downturns. The proposals suggest a clear path toward improved automatic stabilizers for the U.S. economy. These programs already exist or have been pursued in the past, suggesting they are feasible and realistic. Though these policies could be implemented separately, there is an advantage in thinking of them as a package. As described in the first chapter, these policies would affect the economy at different points in time, would assist different types of households, and would address differences in economic conditions across places.

Direct payments are fast and can be executed on a large scale, but are not targeted to struggling regions or households. Likewise, though payments to states can stabilize their budgets, they do not necessarily help individuals who have lost their job or lift consumption. Transportation spending is sometimes done over a slightly longer time frame, but this allows continued spending as the economy recovers. Finally, the safety net policies are likely the best targeted, both to individuals and regions, given that their spending rises wherever economic distress is highest. Unemployment insurance is more likely to help middle-income families, while TANF and SNAP are targeted to low-income families. By setting up an array of stabilizers, policymakers can ensure that a wide range of families are supported and that demand in the economy is boosted across a variety of sectors.

Recessions exact a major toll on individuals, families, firms, and budgets throughout the United States. A key aspect of proper macroeconomic policymaking is to minimize losses by responding quickly and effectively to downturns. As discussed in the next chapter, lower interest rates have left the Federal Reserve with less room to cut rates in response to a downturn. This makes it all the more important that policymakers set in place the proper fiscal structures to make sure that fiscal policy plays an active and efficient role in combating recessions.

Economic forecasters rarely correctly call the timing of a recession. Perhaps the one thing they can all agree on, however, is that another economic downturn will come. A crucial part of preparing for the next recession is making sure fiscal policy institutions are ready to provide support when needed to minimize the damage the next recession could do.

Diplomacia não tem ideologia - André Motta Araújo

Diplomacia não tem ideologia

País algum com uma diplomacia organizada opera fora de seu projeto geopolítico que não tem cor. Valem os interesses do País e nada mais.

André Motta Araújo

GGN, 21/05/2019

Diplomacia não tem ideologia

por André Motta Araújo

A proclamação da República em 15 de novembro de 1889 enfrentou um grave problema de reconhecimento externo do novo regime. O Império era respeitabilíssimo na Europa, muito mais que qualquer outra República da América Ibérica. Os republicanos tinham fundados receios de resistência ao reconhecimento do novo regime pelas monarquias europeias, especialmente pela Inglaterra. O Império Britânico estava no seu apogeu, a soberana era a Rainha Vitória e o Primeiro Ministro era o irascível Lorde Salisbury (Robert Gayscone Cecil). Como Londres iria reagir à deposição do soberano Dom Pedro II, aparentado com os Habsburgos e Bourbons, um monarca sólido, muito respeitado, com reputação impecável, modernizante e progressista?

O primeiro Ministro de Relações Exteriores da República, Quintino Bocaiuva tinha essa como sua maior preocupação, a República dependia do reconhecimento fundamental do Império Britânico, maior parceiro comercial do Brasil e principal financiador do Estado brasileiro desde a Independência.

O grande historiador Rocha Pombo, em sua básica HISTÓRIA DO BRASIL, em cinco volumes, dedica dois capítulos longos a esse tema.

Como o Império Britânico reagiria ao novo regime, sendo esse Império símbolo das monarquias reinantes no planeta?

Rocha Pombo mostra o extraordinário pragmatismo do Foreign Office em Londres. O telegrama de Lorde Salisbury, que acumulava os cargos de Primeiro Ministro e Secretário de Relações Exteriores ao Embaixador inglês no Rio de Janeiro era direto e simples: “O novo regime controla o território? Se a resposta for afirmativa, reconheça-o”.  A maior monarquia do planeta não se prendia a simpatias e sim ao realismo pragmático.

Décadas depois o mesmo império Britânico dava provas de seu pragmatismo, fruto de séculos de experiência e história. Em 1917 a Revolução Soviética liquida com a monarquia russa, cujo titular, Nicolau II, era primo-irmão do Rei da Inglaterra, Jorge V, ambos netos da Rainha Vitória, fuzilado pelos bolcheviques em Ekaterimburgo.

Em 1929 Londres reconhece o novo regime no que era o antigo Império Russo, agora a União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas, a URSS, o mesmo regime que assassinou o primo do monarca reinante, o mesmo Jorge V. Em Moscou mandava o arqui-inimigo Stalin. Mas Londres não vive de lágrimas.

O reconhecimento tinha como objetivo para o Império Britânico a abertura do imenso mercado suas máquinas, locomotivas, caminhões. A URSS tinha como pagar. Enquanto o mundo inteiro entrava na grande crise do capitalismo de 1929, a Rússia não sendo capitalista estava imune.

A Rússia tinha ouro, petróleo, madeiras, tinha vastos recursos financeiros que lhe permitiram abrir em Londres, como parte do reconhecimento britânico, um grande banco, o Moscow Narodny Bank Ltd., para financiar o comércio exterior soviético.

Abriu em Londres também uma grande empresa de comércio, a Arcos Trading Ltd. O Império Britânico não podia querer mais, ganhou novo parceiro comercial de peso, passando por cima dos cadáveres da família imperial Romanoff, parentes de sangue do Rei.

Nenhuma ideologia, rancor, vingança, apenas interesse geopolítico e econômico. Assim é a diplomacia britânica, com sua secular experiência.

A DIPLOMACIA DA REPÚBLICA DE 1946

O Brasil construiu sólida base de pragmatismo diplomático a partir de sua marcante participação no bloco dos Aliados na Segunda Guerra. Essa participação não foi somente pelo envio de uma divisão completa ao teatro de guerra da Itália. Foi especialmente pela liderança brasileira nas duas cruciais conferências de 1942, a de Havana e a do Rio, quando o Brasil liderou a América Latina ao lado do bloco anglo-americano. Não foi pouca coisa.

Havia no continente forte corrente de neutralidade, liderada pela Argentina, que o Brasil venceu, levando todas as nações latino-americanas, com exceção de Argentina e Chile, para o lado dos Aliados, pela extraordinária liderança do chanceler Oswaldo Aranha, depois figura de proa na criação das Nações Unidas.

Desde então a diplomacia brasileira ganhou peso e importância máxima como instrumento de pragmatismo diplomático, cujo ponto alto foi o Governo Geisel que, representando um regime de direita, reconheceu em primeiro lugar os regimes marxistas de Angola e Moçambique, seus antípodas ideológicos, para com isso ganhar influência e projeção de poder nessas ex-colônias portuguesas, capital infelizmente destruído pela cruzada moralista brasileira.

Esse pragmatismo sem ideologia foi a marca da diplomacia brasileira desde o fim da Segunda Guerra até 2018.

A DIPLOMACIA PRAGMÁTICA DA FRANÇA

País símbolo da diplomacia por um dos seus maiores construtores, o Príncipe de Talleyrand (Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Perigord), a França vende a alma para não perder o negócio. Conseguiu uma proeza extraordinária em manter seus laços culturais, econômicos e políticos com suas ex-colônias africanas, com uma diplomacia de primeiríssima qualidade. Levou ao Ministro na França dois grandes líderes africanos, Leopold Senghor e Felix Houphouet Boigny, este último membro da Academia Francesa e deputado à Assembleia Nacional em Paris, enquanto Felix Boigny foi Ministro da Saúde da França, depois Presidente da Costa do Marfim, uma costura diplomática extraordinária., lembrando que o General De Gaulle, detestado por Roosevelt, se aliou a Stalin como contra-vapor, sendo De Gaulle um direitista convicto mas as alianças não tem cor e nem lado.

O Presidente da França, Valery Giscard d Éstaing , assistiu impassível à coroação do Imperador Bokassa para manter esse território sob o guarda-chuva francês, sendo Bokassa um bárbaro.

DIPLOMACIA NÃO TEM LADO

País algum com uma diplomacia organizada opera fora de seu projeto geopolítico que não tem cor. Valem os interesses do País e nada mais.

Visão e operação fora da realidade nada significam a não ser puro amadorismo cujo preço pode ser o infinito, um País não é um brinquedo.

Rubens Ricupero: contra a submissao aos EUA - InfoMoney

“É um equívoco ver os EUA como o país que deve nos liderar”, diz Rubens Ricupero

Diretor da Faap e ex-embaixador avalia que Brasil tem melhores chances de se desenvolver se reforçar suas relações com a Ásia

Um Brasil

InfoMoney, 10/05/2019

Assim como os demais países da América Latina, o Brasil não conseguiu crescer suficiente e ininterruptamente durante 30 anos, tempo necessário para estreitar a distância que o separa das nações desenvolvidas. Agora, o mundo passa por um movimento em que as oportunidades de desenvolvimento, até pouco tempo concentradas às margens do Atlântico (Estados Unidos e Europa Ocidental), derivam para o Pacífico, e, por isso, o País deve direcionar suas relações comerciais e tecnológicas para a Ásia, de acordo com o diretor da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (Faap), diplomata aposentado, ex-embaixador em Washington e ex-ministro da Fazenda e do Meio Ambiente, Rubens Ricupero.

Em entrevista ao UM BRASIL, Ricupero diz que a política externa brasileira deve “auscultar o que vai pelo mundo, saber captar quais são as tendências, para onde vai o mundo e, em seguida, adaptar o País a essas tendências”. Nesse sentido, ele destaca que a China, a qual chama de “estrela do futuro”, segue os passos de outras nações asiáticas – Japão, Hong-Kong, Coreia do Sul, Singapura, Malásia e Tailândia.

“A posição brasileira deve ser de buscar o seu desenvolvimento aproveitando as oportunidades criadas por esse movimento da história, que é um movimento que nós não podemos deter ainda que quiséssemos. É um movimento em que nós pouca influência temos. Então, qual é o caminho? Temos que investir cada vez mais e procurar ter relações econômicas, comerciais e tecnológicas com os países asiáticos”, afirma o ex-embaixador.

Ricupero comenta que, no século passado, a agenda internacional brasileira foi bastante pautada pela norte-americana, inclusive tendo o Brasil, muitas vezes, assumido uma postura “política de alinhamento automático” com os Estados Unidos. Hoje, ele diz que o País precisa ter precaução ao se aproximar da maior potência da América como fez ao longo do século 20.

“Os dirigentes da época [da Guerra Fria] consideravam que a agenda internacional americana e a agenda internacional brasileira coincidiam, porque o inimigo era o mesmo, o comunismo internacional. Hoje, não. Hoje, a agenda internacional americana tem pouquíssimos pontos de contato com a agenda brasileira”, avalia. “Qual é a agenda americana nesse momento? Primeiro ponto: contenção da China. Se possível, evitar que a China se torne a maior superpotência tecnológica do mundo, porque os chineses têm esse propósito. Por que o Brasil conteria a China? O Brasil tem na China o seu principal mercado. O Brasil vende para a China mais de 25% das suas exportações”, complementa.

De acordo com Ricupero, outras questões internacionais as quais um eventual alinhamento com os Estados Unidos prejudicaria o Brasil envolvem o Irã – país responsável por 7% das exportações de carne brasileira – e uma desavença sem sentido com a Rússia.

“Que interesse o Brasil teria em ter qualquer tipo de confronto com a Rússia?”, questiona o diretor da Faap. “O que eu quero dizer é que as nossas agendas interna e externa não coincidem com a americana, por isso é um equívoco ver nos Estados Unidos o país que deve nos liderar”, assegura.

Ex-embaixador em Genebra, Washington e Roma, Ricupero argumenta que a diplomacia brasileira sempre se destacou por uma vocação “construtiva de moderação e equilíbrio, sem comprar brigas que não são nossas”. Ele ainda lembra que, caso não haja nenhum conflito armado com a Venezuela, o Brasil completará 150 anos de paz com seus vizinhos em 2020, tendo o último conflito internacional sido a Guerra do Paraguai.

“Você pode dizer até que em parte é uma ideologia, é verdade, mas é melhor ter uma ideologia positiva do que se imaginar um povo belicoso, conquistador, militarmente forte. Não é essa a nossa tradição. A nossa tradição é uma em que a glória está muito mais na diplomacia do que na guerra”, pontua.

Politica externa brasileira: selecionada pelo Google Alerts

Não sou responsável pela seleção: é o Google quem me envia. Eu apenas indico as palavras-chave:

NOTÍCIAS
	Diplomacia não tem ideologia, por André Motta Araújo Jornal GGN O grande historiador Rocha Pombo, em sua básica HISTÓRIA DO BRASIL, ... Esse pragmatismo sem ideologia foi a marca da diplomacia brasileira ... https://jornalggn.com.br/artigos/diplomacia-nao-tem-ideologia-por-andre-motta-araujo/
	“É um equívoco ver os EUA como o país que deve nos liderar”, diz Rubens Ricupero InfoMoney Ex-embaixador em Genebra, Washington e Roma, Ricupero argumenta que a diplomacia brasileira sempre se destacou por uma vocação ... https://www.infomoney.com.br/blogs/economia-e-politica/um-brasil/post/8324658/e-um-equivoco-ver-os-eua-como-o-pais-que-deve-nos-liderar-diz-rubens-ricupero
	Diga não à diplomacia da submissão Jornal do Tocantins Para dar maior clareza ao que hoje acontece na relação Brasil-Estados Unidos, voltemos a nove décadas na história da diplomacia brasileira. [Não disponível]

Politica externa brasileira: passado, presente e futuro - Paulo Roberto de Almeida (Curitiba, 29 e 30/05)

EVENTO DE EXTENSÃO

POLÍTICA EXTERNA BRASILEIRA :

PASSADO, PRESENTE E FUTURO 

Tenho a satisfação de convidá-lo (a) para os Eventos de Extensão intitulados “POLÍTICA EXTERNA BRASILEIRA  - passado, presente e futuro”, promovido pela Faculdade de Ciências Jurídicas da Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná (UTP) e pela Faculdade de Educação Superior do Paraná (FESP), com o apoio do  Centro Heleno Fragoso  pelos Direitos Humanos (CHF)  e  da  Associação de Juristas  pela Integração da América Latina (AJIAL), que será levado a efeito nas datas de 29 e 30 de maio vindouro.

A atividade extensionista terá como destaque a conferência do Prof. Dr. Paulo Roberto de Almeida, embaixador de carreira do MRE, doutor em Ciências Sociais (Université Libre de Bruxelles - 1984), professor de Economia Política no Programa de Pós-graduação do Centro Universitário de Brasília (UNICEUB) e escritor consagrado. 

Os eventos acontecerão em Curitiba: 

a) no Auditório da FESP (Rua Dr. Faivre, 141), na data de 29 de maio de 2019, das 19h00 às 20h30; e, 

b) no Auditório do Curso de Direito da UTP (Rua José Nicco, 179), no dia 30 de maio de 2019, das 09h30 às 11h10. 

A iniciativa conta com a coordenação-geral do Prof. Wagner Rocha D'Angelis. Serão fornecidos certificados.

Na ocasião, o embaixador Paulo Roberto de Almeida estará lançando seu mais recente livro “Contra a Corrente – ensaios contrarianistas sobre as relações internacionais do Brasil” (Editora Appris). 

Para maiores informações e também inscrições, favor acessar o link:

https://utp.br/extensao/curso/politica-externa-brasileira

Agradeço antecipadamente a presença de Vossa Senhoria e/ou colaboração na divulgação deste significativo Evento.

Atenciosamente,  

Wagner Rocha D'Angelis

A politica externa dos EUA: discurso do Secretario de Estado Mike Pompeo

Intro by Walter Russell Mead no Wall Street Journal: 

What ‘America First’ Means to Pompeo

Walter Russell Mead

The U.S. faces a series of intractable crises and standoffs around the world. Trade talks with China have reached an impasse; North Korea has returned to threats and missile launches; the chaos on America’s southern border shows no sign of abating; relations with Germany reached new lows after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel so he could visit Iraq; Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro continues to defy U.S. pressure to stand down; and an apparent act of sabotage against ships in the Persian Gulf Monday ratcheted tensions another notch higher in the Middle East.

Against this background, Secretary Pompeo delivered his most comprehensive attempt yet to expound the core themes informing the Trump administration’s foreign policy. His speech—delivered Saturday to the Claremont Institute in Southern California—deserves careful study. Whether or not President Trump’s foreign policy is successful, the ideas laid out by Mr. Pompeo are likely to shape the Republican Party’s approach to statecraft for years to come.

=================

https://www.state.gov/remarks-at-the-claremont-institute-40th-anniversary-gala-a-foreign-policy-from-the-founding/

Remarks at the Claremont Institute 40th Anniversary Gala: “A Foreign Policy From the Founding”

REMARKS

MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE

 / 

MAY 11, 2019

BEVERLY WILSHIRE HOTEL

BEVERLY HILLS, CA

SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you. Thank you all. People talk about my job being nerve-wracking. There is nothing as nerve-wracking as that much applause before you speak. (Laughter.) And you should know – Ryan, thank you for the kind introduction too – I was on this trip when I heard about this little dustup about the advertisement for this dinner, and it said they wouldn’t let him post because of the offensive material. I’m like, is that me? (Laughter.) But I also know a point – with no advertisement and this crowd, you’d have needed a much bigger room.

So it is wonderful. It is great to be out with a group of people who care about America so deeply. Thank you for having me. (Applause.) I want to thank the Claremont Institute as well. As you said, I just got back on a trip where I had gone to Finland to talk about America’s interests in the Arctic. I made a little detour to Iraq – (laughter) – and then back to London. Makes Southern California weather feel pretty good. (Laughter.)

First of all, I was – you talked about this is home. I grew up at basically Harbor and McFadden. My father still lives in that house. I was there today. (Applause.) Yeah, it was really something. He’s lived in that house since 1961, and today they had the whole little street blocked off with California Highway Patrol and the security team, and the neighbors were all coming out like, “I know that kid.” (Laughter.)

The Bible describes John the Baptist as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” And I sometimes think about the Claremont Institute that way.

I call Kansas home. It’s where I spent the bulk of my adult life outside of the military. But I had spent my childhood here, of course, when Ronald Reagan was the governor. And I have to tell you, California has changed a little bit since I left. (Laughter.) I’m going to have to come back and help you all get it right. (Cheers and applause.)

It’s so important that you all know, all the people who make Claremont tick, Ryan and the team and all of those who contribute, your work goes way past California. And as Ryan said, there’s been a lot written in the Claremont Review of Books that clarify the aims and undertakings of what we’re trying to do in this administration, and the hundreds of fellows that you’ve educated over the years who are defending the first principles on the front lines. In fact, Ryan mentioned I have a senior advisor, Mary Kissel, and a speechwriter, who is sitting over here to my left. The two of them wrote this tonight, so if you don’t like it, it is on you. (Laughter.)

It also looks like my Leo Strauss quote, Leos Strauss quote, so you’re the only ones that might laugh at that joke, so thank you. (Laughter.)

Look, all kidding aside, your work to preserve the ideals of the American Founding is absolutely what America needs. There is literally, as I travel the world, there is nothing more distinctive about the United States than our politics, and wonderfully so. We are the truly greatest experiment in human freedom that the world has ever seen, and I, as America’s senior diplomat, benefit from that every day. (Applause.)

I want to do a little bit of the history, because the foreign policy of the early republic reflected the attitude of a free nation which has thrown off an imperial power, which, frankly, I just left. (Laughter.) And look, I think there’s three words that characterize that. They would be realism, restraint, and respect, and I’ll talk about each of them just for a moment.

First, realism. The Founders were keen students of human nature and history. They saw that conflict is the normative experience for nations. Hamilton put this Federalist 34. He said, “To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and [beneficial] sentiments of peace.”

I’ll simplify: The Founders knew peace wasn’t the norm. And in response to this reality, the Founders knew the first duty of the federal government was to provide for the safety of its citizens. Madison said, “[Security] is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.” You all know that.

How about restraint? The Founders sought to protect our interests but avoid adventurism. The Barbary War, fought so soon after independence, was an effort of last resort to protect our vital commercial interests. The Monroe Doctrine – relevant even today – was a message of deterrence, not a license to grab land. “Peace and friendship,” said Jefferson, “with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice.”

And finally, respect. The Founders had recently cast off the tyranny of an empire. They were not eager to subjugate others. In 1821, John Quincy Adams wrote that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” But indeed, quite the opposite: “She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” And as the first nation of its kind, the world would see America as a model for self-government and liberty. And a special bond would link America to any nation that loved those things.

Let’s contrast the Founders’ ideas to the foreign policy of the late 20th and early 21st century. American leaders had drifted from realism. At the dawn of the post-Cold war era, hopes were high that enfolding the likes of China and Russia into a so-called rules-based international order would hasten their domestic evolution towards democracy. We hoped this order – comprised of institutions and agreed upon by codes of conduct – would temper their actions towards neighbors and to our country.

But we can see now 30 years on, after the end of the Cold War, that the Putin regime slays dissidents in cold blood and invades its neighbors; that the Chinese Communist Party has detained more than one million Chinese Muslims in labor camps, and it uses coercion and corruption as its primary tools of statecraft. And as I’ll talk about here in just a little bit, both countries have foreign policies intent on eroding American power. We can’t blame our leaders for their optimism, but we can blame them for having misjudged those regimes.

America too had become unrestrained, untethered from common sense. The institutions, the institutions we built to defend the free world against the Soviet menace, had drifted from their original mission set. Indeed, some of them had become directly antagonistic to our interests, while we kept silent. We bought into trade agreements that helped hollow out our own middle class. We sacrificed American competitiveness for accolades from the UN and climate activists. And we engaged in conflicts without a clear sense of mission. No more. (Applause.)

And to round out this trio, we had lost sight of respect – not for other nations, but for our own people and for our ideals. We cozied up to Cuba. We struck a terrible agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran that put the regime’s campaigns of terrorism and proxy wars on steroids. And many of our leaders were more eager to delight the Davos crowd than champion the principles that have made us the greatest nation that civilization has ever known. (Applause.)

By the way, the Claremont Institute sadly knows, I could also name a certain tech company that we spoke about earlier that’s forgotten our first principles too. (Applause.)

I am very confident. I am very confident that the Founders would have been perplexed by those moves. We had too much confidence in the international system and not enough confidence in our own nation. And we had too little courage to confront regimes squarely opposed to our interests and to our values. (Applause.)

But I bring you good news. One man said, “Enough.” And in 2016, you all sent him to the White House. (Cheers and applause.) President Trump’s prescription for foreign policy was very simple, right? “America First.” Now, that’s been mocked a bit. The media has spun this phrase as a dog-whistle for racists and xenophobes. But I’ve spent a fair amount of time with President Trump, in fact, virtually every single day these past two years. (Laughter.) Yeah, sometimes so good, sometimes more challenging for all of us, yes. (Laughter.)

But here’s what this really means. It means that like millions and millions of Americans, President Trump loves this country and wants to see it do well in the world – not at the expense of others, but to the benefit of our people, and by extension, the nations that share our values and our strategic goals. It’s really that simple. If there is a natural law of foreign policy, this is it.

And while he wishes every country enjoyed the freedoms we enjoy here, he has no aspiration to use force to spread the American model. You can see it in the administration’s record of its using force. I can prove it to you.

And so – and so importantly − he believes America is exceptional – a place and history apart from normal human experience, the ones that our Founders spoke about. President Trump believes it is right – indeed more than right – for America to unashamedly advance policy that serves our interests and reflects American ideals. (Applause.)

Certainly, our course of action in this administration reflects a gut-level – a gut-level – for love of country. But taking the pursuit of America’s interests up a notch is not just honorable; it’s urgent in this new era of great power competition. (Applause.)

On China, the President has taken action to stop China from stealing our stuff. No longer will American companies be forced to hand over their technological crown jewels as the price of doing business in China. (Applause.) When a deal doesn’t work for the United States, no deal shall be done. (Applause.)

We have bolstered our military presence in the South China Sea, and we’ve put nations on notice around the world that the sale of key infrastructure and technology companies to China threatens their national security. And we’ve strengthened the group, the entity, that screens Chinese and other foreign investments here in the United States. We are also fighting the battle to make sure that the Chinese Communist Party cannot burrow into the data of billions of internet users through companies like Huawei and ZTE. (Applause.) The internet of tomorrow must have buried within it Western values and must not belong to China. (Applause.)

This has been a real pivot to Asia. (Laughter.)

So look, how else are we putting America First? As I – I gave a speech in Brussels. I didn’t get any of this applause. (Laughter.) (Cheers and applause.) I talked – I spoke that day in Brussels about international agreements and institutions in which the United States enters, and I said that for us to continue to participate it must be with our consent and has to serve our interests and ideals. It seemed pretty straightforward. (Laughter.)

Look, consider our stated intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty with Russia. I don’t watch much TV, but I have seen the media mandarins swear up and down that America was putting the world closer to nuclear war. But as the 28 NATO Allies unanimously concurred, Russia is in violation of the treaty, putting Vladimir Putin closer to an asymmetric advantage of his nuclear forces. Why would one party honor a deal when the other wouldn’t? It made no sense. (Applause.) We chose to abrogate the treaty but not abrogate defending the American people. (Applause.) I’ll put it another way: Our decision on missiles wasn’t rocket science. (Laughter.) Yeah, that was one of your own wrote that one. (Laughter.)

Look, we’re also working to ensure that the future of international agreements unambiguously advances American interest. Past efforts, agreements that we entered into with North Korea, only produced more North Korean nukes and American diplomatic failure. Our diplomacy with the DPRK is laser-focused on making sure that we never again have to reopen the North Korean nuclear file.

I just this past trip to Hanoi came across a major threshold. I had spent more time with Chairman Kim than even Dennis Rodman. (Laughter and applause.)

But I want you all to know this is serious business. We want to make sure that Americans are safe, and we are determined to get our policy with North Korea and to get our allies, Japan and South Korea, and to convince the Russians and the Chinese that this is in the world’s best interest. And our diplomatic efforts to get the entire world to engage, to see the risk for what it is, and to help us get North Korea to a brighter future, is something that our administration is profoundly proud of. (Applause.)

And finally, putting America First means proudly associating with nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them. It’s true; we had some earlier comments from Washington’s Farewell Address. He warned against permanent alliances, but that same speech praised connections with nations based on “policy, humanity, and interest.”

We have reaffirmed America’s historic alliance with the only free nation in the Middle East: Israel. (Cheers and applause.)

We are banding together with the likeminded nations like Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea to make sure that each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty from coercion. It’s part of a greater commitment to a free and open order. You all know this: The distinctive mark of Western Civilization is the belief in the inherent worth of human beings, with the attendant respect for God-authored rights and liberties. Indeed, the Declaration says that “all men are created equal.” And we ought to help nations protect these first things – and human rights as well.

This new pride in taking America’s interests seriously is not just an American phenomenon. Countries all over the world are rediscovering their national identities, and we are supporting them. We’re asking them to do what’s best for their people as well. The wave of electoral surprises has swept from Britain to the United States and all the way to Brazil.

You’ve all heard the famous line, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the United States.” (Laughter.) I actually think the last administration would have said, “What’s good for the world is good for the United States.” Our focus is that, “What’s good for the United States – a foreign policy animated by love of our unique way of life – is good for the world.” (Applause.)

And as I wrap out, I want to talk about why that is.

First, countries who share our same principles find new avenues for collaboration with us. I mentioned before I returned from an Arctic Council Ministerial, a bunch of foreign ministers from eight countries whose nations touch the Arctic’s. I made it clear America is now sharpening its focus in an area of increasing strategic importance. We want to cooperate with likeminded democracies who share our vision of the Arctic, and guard against those who don’t – nations like China and Russia. My task as America’s most senior diplomat of building alliances is hard work, but they are essential for securing the rights the Founders sought to protect.

Second, love of one’s country forces leaders to better honor the will of their own people. President Trump does that every day. (Applause.)

Hamilton had it right. Hamilton had the right idea. He said, “Under every form of government, rulers are only trustees for the happiness and interest of their nation.” If democratic leaders are not responsive to the jolts of patriotism which are sweeping the world, they won’t be leaders for long. Those who understand that nations are the best vehicle for securing the rights of their citizens will have a much longer shelf life. (Applause.)

Third – the third reason why is that I’ve always been a big believer in competition. I didn’t like it when I ran a small business. I wanted my own little monopoly. (Laughter.) But the truth of the matter is we all know that America can compete and win against our adversaries on security and any economic issue. But even more importantly, competition forces the best ideas to rise. And among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea. (Cheers and applause.)

I have the enormous privilege to serve as America’s most senior diplomat, and what I want the world to see – the unsurpassed attractiveness of the American experiment – is something I market every day. I want other nations to take this same path. Our first president desired the same thing. He used words like this. He said, “The applause, the affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.”

Look, what I’ve just outlined here is a foreign policy that returns America to old truths. We talk about this inside the State Department all the time. Let’s speak about real facts and real truth. It’s something I know that this institute, the Claremont Institute, has a deep appreciation for. President Trump has helped put the world back on track to a nation-first trajectory, and I am confident that this reawakening will last well beyond this, his presidency. As just one example you should see, look at how both parties now are on guard against the threat that China presents to America – maybe except Joe Biden. (Laughter and applause.) God love him. (Laughter.)

Winston Churchill – a name very near to this, dear to this organization – said, “America is like a giant boiler. Light a fire under it, and there’s no limit to the amount of heat it can generate.” A fire was truly lit back in 2016. Bathed in its light, we have embarked on a foreign policy that takes seriously the Founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government. And because of it, American exceptionalism – and the American Founding – will remain alive and well in the 21st century.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless these United States of America. (Applause.)