Filho de presidente embaixador em Washington reprovado por 2/3 dos brasileiros

Indicação de Eduardo Bolsonaro para embaixada em Washington é reprovada por 62%, mostra pesquisa

Segundo levantamento XP/Ipespe com a população, apenas 29% apoiam a ida do filho do presidente Jair Bolsonaro a um dos postos mais cobiçados da diplomacia brasileira

Marcos Mortari

InfoMoney, 9/08/2019

https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/politica/noticia/8786372/indicacao-de-eduardo-bolsonaro-para-embaixada-em-washington-e-reprovada-por-62-mostra-pesquisa

SÃO PAULO - A decisão do presidente Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) de indicar o filho, o deputado federal Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP), para a embaixada brasileira em Washington (EUA) encontra resistências não apenas no mundo político, mas também na opinião pública. É o que mostra a 11ª edição da pesquisa XP/Ipespe, realizada entre os dias 5 e 7 de agosto.

Segundo o levantamento, 62% dos entrevistados reprovam a iniciativa do pesselista, contra 29% que se posicionaram a favor. Outros 6% classificam o movimento como indiferente. O posto na capital norte-americana, vago desde abril, é o mais cobiçado pela diplomacia brasileira e normalmente ocupado por diplomatas mais experientes.

Acesse a íntegra da pesquisa clicando aqui.

Gráfico: Como os brasileiros avaliam a escolha de Eduardo Bolsonaro?

A pesquisa ouviu 1.000 eleitores, de todas as regiões do país, através de ligações telefônicas conduzidas por operadores. A margem máxima de erro é de 3,2 pontos percentuais para cima ou para baixo. Vale ressaltar que as somas dos percentuais, em alguns casos, supera 100%, em função do arredondamento de casas decimais feito pelos autores do levantamento.

Os resultados foram assunto do último episódio do podcast Frequência Política, feito em parceria pela equipe de análise política da XP Investimentos e o InfoMoney. Você pode ouvir a íntegra pelo Spotify, Spreaker, iTunes, Google Podcasts e Castbox, ou então fazer o download clicando aqui.

Os Estados Unidos formalizaram, na última quinta-feira (8), o aval para indicação de Eduardo Bolsonaro para ser embaixador do Brasil em Washington – o chamado agrément, no jargão da diplomacia. A posição já era esperada, uma vez que o próprio presidente norte-americano, Donald Trump, já dirigiu elogios ao parlamentar brasileiro.

Antes de assumir a posição, o deputado precisa ser sabatinado pelos membros da Comissão de Relações Exteriores do Senado Federal. Ao final, o colegiado decide se aceita a indicação, em votação secreta. Depois, o mesmo pedido, independentemente de aprovação ou rejeição da comissão, é analisado pelo plenário da casa legislativa, também em voto secreto com exigência de quórum de maioria simples.

O presidente Jair Bolsonaro indicou que pode formalizar o envio do nome do filho ao Senado no início da semana que vem. A indicação é alvo de polêmica, com acusações de nepotismo por críticos ao governo. Mas uma brecha na súmula do Supremo Tribunal Federal que trata da nomeação de parentes em cargos públicos permitiria tal movimento, já que não trata de nomeações de cargos de natureza política.

Record publicará livro vetado pelo Itamaraty com prefácio de Rubens Ricupero

Três hurrahs para a Editora Record, que vai editar e publicar a biografia de Alexandre de Gusmão, "avô" da diplomacia brasileira, pelo historiador e diplomata, embaixador, Synesio Sampaio Goes Filho, com prefácio do embaixador e grande historiador Rubens Ricupero, autor da obra "A diplomacia na construção do Brasil, 1750-2016 (Versal). A biografia de Alexandre de Gusmão por Synesio deveria estar sendo publicada pela Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão (justamente), do Itamaraty, pois foi encomendada a ele pelo presidente anterior da Funag, mas a atual administração, consoante o "stalinismo diplomático" que vigora na Casa de Rio Branco vetou o prefácio de Rubens Ricupero.
Meus cumprimentos ao editor Carlos Andreazza por ter tomado a iniciativa de publicar pela Record essa obra que dá início, praticamente, ao processo de preparação das comemorações do bicentenário da independência brasileira.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Record publicará livro vetado pelo Itamaraty devido a prefácio de desafeto de chanceler

Obra com texto de Rubens Ricupero foi escrita por um dos maiores historiadores da diplomacia brasileira

Patricia Campos Mello,

Folha de S. Paulo, 5.ago.2019

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2019/08/record-publicara-livro-vetado-pelo-itamaraty-por-causa-de-prefacio-de-desafeto-de-chanceler.shtml

Rubens Ricupero durante entrevista em sua residência, em São Paulo - Marlene Bergamo - 20.set.17/Folhapress

A editora Record vai publicar o livro que foi vetado pelo Itamaraty devido a seu prefácio, escrito por um desafeto do chanceler Ernesto Araújo. O livro será editado por Carlos Andreazza, editor-executivo da Record, e deve sair no começo de 2020.

O embaixador Synesio Sampaio Goes Filho, um dos maiores historiadores da diplomacia brasileira, havia sido incumbido pela Funag (Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão), braço cultural e pedagógico do ministério, de escrever a biografia de Alexandre de Gusmão, que batiza a fundação.

Gusmão, conhecido como “avô da diplomacia brasileira”, foi um diplomata com papel crucial nas negociações do Tratado de Madri (1750), que determinou os limites territoriais das colônias portuguesas e espanholas na América do Sul.

Em julho deste ano, quando entregou à diretoria da Funag os originais de “Alexandre de Gusmão (1695-1753): O Estadista que Desenhou o Mapa do Brasil”, Goes Filho foi informado de que o livro só seria publicado se ele retirasse o prefácio escrito por Rubens Ricupero, ex-embaixador em Washington e também historiador da diplomacia.

Ricupero já fez muitas críticas ao chanceler e aos rumos da política externa no governo Bolsonaro.

Goes Filho afirmou que houve censura e que estava procurando uma nova editora para publicar seu livro.

Ele também é autor de “Navegantes, Bandeirantes, Diplomatas: um Ensaio sobre a Formação das Fronteiras do Brasil (2001)”, livro que é um dos mais vendidos da Funag e considerado leitura essencial para diplomatas.

Idiotas antivacinais e outros adeptos de teorias da conspiracao podem causar mortes - Anne Applebaum (WP)

Italians decided to fight a conspiracy theory. Here’s what happened next.

Anne Applebaum

The Washington Post, August 9, 2019

Alongside the flat-earthers, 9/11 truthers and Obama birthers, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists have always had a special distinction: They can do immediate and specific damage in a way that the others can’t. Birtherism surely increased Americans’ distrust of politics, though in ways that are hard to pin down. By contrast, when anti-vaxxers persuade parents not to vaccinate children, the result can be sickness and even death.

How, then, to push back against them? Does sympathy with parents who are spooked by vaccines help to bring them around, or is it better to be tough? Over the past few years, both of these tactics have been tried in Italy, a country where, starting in about 2012, vaccination rates plunged. In 2015, Italy had one of the lowest rates of vaccination against measles in Europe. At 85 percent, the rate was lower than India. In 2017, Italy suffered a predictably large outbreak of measles, with more than 5,000 cases and four deaths.

It’s not hard to work out how this happened. Italians have famously low levels of trust in their government, and a tradition of medical hoaxes. On top of that, the issue became politicized: Italy’s Five Star Movement — a “non-party” party, founded by a comedian and formed on the Internet — spent a long time nodding and winking to anti-vaxxers . Unsurprisingly, a movement founded on hatred of “the establishment” was also suspicious of the medical establishment . In both Italy and the United States, the arguments behind the campaign are the same: the fear (derived from a now-discredited scientific paper) that the most common childhood vaccines cause autism; the belief that vaccines are a rip-off perpetrated by Big Pharma; the conviction that the dangers of vaccines have been deliberately concealed.

Facing all of this, one Italian doctor snapped. “At a certain point,” Roberto Burioni told me, “I decided that the misinformation was too much and I had to do something.” Burioni, a distinguished virologist and university professor, declared an online war on the anti-vax movement: “If they can write on social media, then I can do it too.” He posted stories of people maimed and disfigured by the complications of infectious diseases. He deconstructed anti-vax arguments. He also argued individually with anti-vaxxers, ridiculing them as uninformed: “I tried to show how stupid they are. How fake and nonsensical are the things they are saying.”

Burioni gained a huge following, which he followed up with a prize-winning book, “Vaccines Are Not an Opinion.” He became part of a pro-vaccination, and pro-science, counter-movement that led the previous Italian government to require all children to be vaccinated before attending preschool, on pain of exclusion. Although the Five Star Movement is now in government — and a Five Star politician is the health minister — the backlash is so strong that although they have discussed removing this requirement, they haven’t done it yet.

But was Burioni’s method the only way? Roberta Villa, a science journalist and writer, is one of several people who have their doubts. She, too, has a social media following, especially on YouTube, where she presents videos on vaccines and other health issues, sometimes against the backdrop of her kitchen.

She doesn’t attack nervous parents: “I believe that you cannot get anyone’s attention insulting them.” Instead, noting that there is sometimes a grain of truth at the root of conspiracy theories — that, for example, some vaccines have historically had some side effects — she tries to address their fears as legitimate, and then bring them gently around.

She points out that the most recent statistics show that only 0.5 percent of Italian parents are hardened anti-vaxxers, but that another group, parents with vague vaccine anxieties, is much larger. This is the group that she thinks gentle persuasion will bring around, especially by acknowledging, from the start, that “you have absolutely the right to be afraid.”

But what if both are right? That is, what if Burioni’s more brutal, “here are the facts” method and Villa’s gentler tactics simply work on different kinds of people? There are Italians who will be moved by forceful communications from a genuine expert, there are Italians who will be moved by gentle persuasion from someone who seems simpatico, and there are Italians who will be moved by government policy. And that has further implications: It means that any counter-disinformation campaign might require more than one tactic, more than one message and more than one kind of messenger if it is to succeed.

In a world where conspiracy theories — medical, scientific and, of course, political — are proliferating, this is more than just a useful insight. It should be the beginning of a new way of thinking about long-term strategies to deal with disinformation more generally. Italian vaccination rates are up, epidemics are down, and it took different kinds of people using different kinds of language to make that happen.

Read more from Anne Applebaum’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.

Read more:

Juliette Kayyem: Anti-vaxxers are dangerous. Make them face isolation, fines, arrests.

Molly Roberts: Tech platforms must move against the anti-vaxxers now

Max Boot: Are we becoming too stupid to govern ourselves?

Rose Branigin: I used to be opposed to vaccines. This is how I changed my mind.

Michael Gerson: Italy’s right wing is waging a dangerous attack on vaccinations

EUA e Russia desmantelaram o tratado de armas intermediarias: 1987-2019

The National Security Archive: The INF Treaty, 1987-2019

by Diane N. Labrosse

From: The National Security Archive <nsarchiv@gwu.edu>

The INF Treaty, 1987-2019

Historic Reagan-Gorbachev arms control agreement expired August 2, 2019.

Declassified documents show major advances on verification, missed opportunities for conventional and strategic arms cuts

View the posting

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 679

Washington D.C., August 2, 2019 – The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 not only eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons but also broke new ground in arms control verification, according to declassified documents on INF negotiations published today by the National Security Archive.

Marking the expiration date today of the INF Treaty following the U.S. withdrawal announcement last October, the e-book publication includes key documents from both Soviet and American sources tracing the entire year of INF negotiations in 1987, and highlights the remarkable proposals on the table at the time (mostly from the Soviet side) for even more intrusive inspections and even more dramatic cuts in both strategic and conventional weapons.

The Archive first published these documents in 2007 on the 20th anniversary of the Washington summit between Reagan and Gorbachev, and since then has published the complete transcripts of all the Reagan-Gorbachev conversations in The Last Superpower Summits (CEU Press, 2016).

Check out the posting at the National Security Archive

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.

Guerra cambial: de volta aos anos 1930? - George Magnus

Yuan’s Slide Is Gold Standard Moment for China

The decision to let the currency weaken beyond 7 to the dollar echoes previous turning points of historic global significance.

George Magnus

Straits Times, Singapura – 9.8.2019

China allowing the yuan to slide below 7 to the dollar is a watershed moment for currency markets that's symbolically equivalent to the U.S. and other countries abandoning the gold standard in the interwar period, or the collapse of the postwar Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates four decades ago. The implications for the global economy are equally significant.

The world’s major currencies aren’t tethered in the way they were in those periods, but gold and Bretton Woods both served as anchors for the world’s monetary system, and their demise reflected the economic and political disarray of their times. Today, the yuan is semi-pegged to the U.S. dollar. The arrangement serves as an anchor for China’s financial system, now the world’s largest by assets; for many currency systems in Asia and around the world; and for U.S.-China economic and financial relations.

If that mainstay ruptures, it’s liable to set off chain reactions inside and outside China. That’s why the loosening in currency policy by the People’s Bank of China this week, while it may seem unremarkable for most people, is an important development.

It may be too early to assert that China is “weaponizing” the yuan in the deepening trade war with the U.S., especially because the central bank’s actions still appear measured and moderate. Nevertheless, the assumption that keeping the yuan rate stable against the dollar was part of the complex politics surrounding the trade negotiations no longer holds. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 10% punitive tariff on a further $300 billion of Chinese imports – perhaps a waymark to 25% at a later date – looks to have changed the calculus. 

China can no longer engage in tit-for-tat tariffs because it imports so much less than it sells to the U.S. Its only options are to target American companies using its own “ entity list” of firms deemed to damage Chinese interests; make life more difficult for them in China; and ultimately to depreciate the currency. The political decision to sanction the move suggests China has weighed the costs of a weaker currency and decided they are less than those of an impasse in talks and continued economic harm from tariffs.

A cheaper yuan, or renminbi, will help Chinese exporters compete in the U.S. and global markets, offsetting the impact of tariffs to some extent. In the short term, it will help to prop up China’s fragile growth momentum. 

The negative implications are more severe, though. A weaker currency will hurt Chinese consumers, who will pay more for imports, and hinder the intended shift in the economy to a more consumer-oriented structure. It will raise the credit risk and vulnerability of Chinese property and other companies that have been borrowing increasing volumes of dollars in the past few years. It will almost certainly encourage residents to try to evade capital controls and place money offshore. This happened in 2015-16 too, though the strengthened capital controls regime since then is likely to be more effective for the time being.

Beyond China, the yuan’s slide is likely to trigger competitive currency depreciations, especially in countries that are part of its Asian supply chains and those that compete with Chinese products. The dollar will be the de facto beneficiary, often a sign that the world economy is faltering. A weaker renminbi will hurt U.S. producers and exporters at a time when the American economy is softening. It will also reduce the foreign earnings of U.S, firms, and as a result, the equity market.

The political significance may be at least as great. The importance of the renminbi, literally the “people’s money,” to China is no less than that of the dollar to America or sterling to the U.K. China’s economic narrative places much pride in, for example, its $3 trillion stock of foreign-currency reserves, and attaches extraordinary status to the role and function of the renminbi. The decision to put the stability of the currency at risk won’t have been taken lightly. 

As far as economic activity is concerned, the yuan’s move through 7 almost certainly reflects concern over the weaker trajectory of the economy, in which trade plays a relatively small direct role, though a cumulatively more important one. It’s not only the effect of tariffs that filters through China’s economy, but the loss of productive capacity as a rising number of firms move supply chain operations, and jobs, outside the country. A major Chinese investment bank recently suggested the industrial sector has lost about 5 million jobs in the last year, almost half of which are attributable to the trade war. 

The yuan’s move appears to reflect frustration at the lack of progress in trade talks, and specifically the refusal of the U.S. side to remove tariffs as a condition for any Chinese concessions. The depreciation will be managed for the time being, but it’s unlikely to stop. With time, the rapid expansion of financial assets in China, combined with political pressures, will probably lead to a much greater decline.

By then, it won’t be only financial markets that are paying attention. The yuan’s path may help shape the future of geopolitical and economic arrangements around the world. (Bloomberg)

America Latina: a que menos cresce no mundo - Andrés Oppenheimer

Grato a Pedro Luiz Rodrigues pela seleção de matérias sempre tão interessantes para ler.

América Latina, la que menos crece

Andrés Oppenheimer

La Nación, Buenos Aires – 8.8.2019

El nuevo pronóstico económico del Fondo Monetario Internacional dado a conocer pocos días atrás trae malas noticias para América Latina: la región tendrá el crecimiento económico más bajo del mundo este año. O sea, será el campeón mundial del estancamiento económico.

Según las previsiones del FMI, las economías de América Latina crecerán un promedio de 0,6 por ciento en 2019. Eso debería activar las alarmas en la región porque sucede en el marco de una economía mundial en crecimiento.

El FMI pronostica que la economía mundial crecerá un 3,2 por ciento este año, incluida una tasa de crecimiento del 6,2 por ciento en Asia y del 3,4 por ciento en el África subsahariana.

La mayoría de los países más grandes de América Latina crecerán menos de lo que se había anticipado, dijo el FMI.

La tasa de crecimiento de México se ha revisado a la baja a 0,9 por ciento este año. La economía de Brasil crecerá solamente 0,8 por ciento, y la de Argentina se reducirá 1,3 por ciento en 2019, y crecerá 1,1 por ciento en 2020. La economía de Venezuela caerá un 35 por ciento este año.

Solamente Chile, Colombia y Perú crecerán a tasas saludables de 3,2, 3,4 y 3,7 por ciento, respectivamente, este año, dice el FMI.

¿Por qué está estancada América Latina? Hay muchos motivos, pero estos son algunos de los más importantes:

Falta de continuidad en las políticas económicas, lo que ahuyenta a los inversionistas. En muchos países, cada nuevo presidente quiere reinventar la rueda y deshace todo lo que hizo el anterior.

En México, por ejemplo, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador ha prometido llevar a cabo una "cuarta transformación" en la historia del país. López Obrador, entre otras cosas, suspendió contratos para la enorme renovación del aeropuerto de la Ciudad de México y está dando marcha atrás a reformas para mejorar la calidad de la educación pública.

Eso ha creado "una fuerte incertidumbre en torno a las políticas económicas de México", según el FMI. Uno puede estar de acuerdo o no con eso, pero el hecho es que la "cuarta transformación" de López Obrador está ahuyentando las inversiones. El presidente no parece entender que sin inversión no habrá crecimiento, y sin crecimiento no habrá reducción de la pobreza.

Excesivo gasto público, baja productividad y una pésima distribución de la riqueza. Muchos de los países más grandes de la región, como la Argentina, simplemente gastan mucho más de lo que producen.

Nuevas cifras que circulan en las instituciones financieras internacionales muestran que la Argentina tiene solo nueve millones de trabajadores en el sector privado y autónomo, que en conjunto mantienen a 15,3 millones de personas a cargo del Estado, entre ellas los jubilados, gente que recibe subsidios estatales y empleados públicos.

Entre 2003 y 2015, durante los gobiernos populistas de Néstor Kirchner y Cristina Fernández, el gasto público de la Argentina se duplicó.

Y sin embargo la fórmula presidencial que incluye a la expresidenta Cristina Fernández como candidata a la vicepresidencia está liderando varias encuestas y podría ganar las próximas elecciones. Muchos argentinos aún no han aprendido la lección de que un país no puede gastar más de lo que produce sin ir de crisis en crisis.

Bajos estándares de educación, ciencia, tecnología e innovación. Los países latinoamericanos ocupan los últimos lugares en la prueba internacional PISA de estudiantes de 15 años y registran muy pocas patentes internacionales de nuevos inventos.

Mientras que Corea del Sur registró 17.000 patentes ante la Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual el año pasado, todos los países de América Latina y el Caribe juntos registraron solamente 537 patentes. En una economía global basada en el conocimiento, esa es una receta para el atraso.

Mi conclusión es que los países de la región no pueden seguir culpando a factores externos por su estancamiento económico, porque la economía mundial está creciendo y otros países emergentes de todo el mundo están creciendo mucho más. Es hora de reconocer que tenemos un problema interno y comenzar a abordarlo creando un clima que atraiga las inversiones y promueva la innovación.

RBPI: special issue on International Development Cooperation: call for papers

08-Aug-2019

Dear Dr. Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The International Development Cooperation field is in a state of disarray. Since its emergence, after World War II, it acquired a dual structure encompassing two positions: developed and developing countries, donors and recipients, north, and south. Two clubs reflected these positions: DAC/OECD and G-77, respectively. Two sets of practices also identified the field: Official Development Assistance (ODA), and Technical or Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC and ECDC), later known as South-South Cooperation (SSC). Both practices, ODA and SSC, distinguished development cooperation from other economic flows such as trade or foreign investment.

Despite many changes about the very understanding of what development meant, development agents have adapted to relevant systemic changes. The field emerged within a bi-polar system and remained relatively unchanged for almost six decades. It survived the systemic transformation that took place after the end of the Cold War and kept relatively steady during the unipolar moment of the 1990s. While its agents played an essential role in establishing superpowers’ zones of influence, they also gave a significant contribution to the market-oriented reforms that happened later.

Nevertheless, after the 2000s emerging powers and the financial crisis had a significant impact upon the field’s foundations. Indeed, the current systemic change towards multipolarity is producing germane effects upon the ground. The growing engagement of BRICS, MIST and Arabic countries in development cooperation evidences the systemic change, generating a mirror effect on traditional donors’ stances, clubbing, and practices. The transformation of the field includes:

(i) changes in the concepts and practices of both ODA and SSC;

(ii) oscillations on the positions agents play in the field (donor, recipient, provider, partner or donor/recipient);

(iii) variations in grouping, coalitions, and initiatives (DAC/OECD, UNDCF, GPEDC, G77+China, G20, plus BRICS or IBSA);

(iv) shifts towards other economic flows, such as trade and investment, described as blended finance;

(v) a growing centrality of triangular cooperation;

All these trends point towards a structural transformation of the International Development Cooperation field. It is against this backdrop that the Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional - RBPI (http://www.scielo.br/rbpi) calls academic researchers and practitioners to submit contributions to this special issue. The issue aims at analyzing and assessing the current transformations in International Development Cooperation practices, governance and goals. We welcome contributions addressing how systemic changes are impacting on international development cooperation as well as those addressing the topics described above.

Paulo Esteves (Associate Professor of International Relations at the Institute of International Relations / PUC-Rio) and Geovana Zoccal (Humboldt Research Fellow at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) will edit the volume. All submissions should be original and unpublished, must be written in English, including an abstract which does not exceed 60 words (and 4-6 keywords in English), and follow the Chicago System. They must be in the range of 8.000 words (including title, abstract, bibliographic references, and keywords). RBPI general authors guidelines can be found at http://www.scielo.br/revistas/rbpi/iinstruc.htm. Submissions must be done at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/rbpi-scielo.

Articles can be submitted September 1st, 2019 and January 31th, 2020.

RBPI is published exclusively online at Scielo (http://www.scielo.br/rbpi), following the continuous publication model. This model gives faster publication for authors and also faster access for readers because the articles are published online at the very moment their editorial production is finished. The first segment will be likely released in January 2020.

An American diplomat resigns from the State Department - Chuck Park (WP)

I can no longer justify being a part of Trump’s ‘Complacent State.’ So I’m resigning.

Chuck Park

The Washington Post, August 8, 2019

Chuck Park’s resignation from the Foreign Service is effective Thursday. 

I was 26, newly married and more than a little idealistic when I set off for my first diplomatic assignment almost a decade ago as a member of the 157th class of commissioned U.S. Foreign Service officers.

According to a certain type of right-leaning conspiracy theorist, that would make me part of “The Deep State” — a shadowy government within the government that puts its own interests above the expressed wishes of the electorate. Adherents to this theory believe that thousands of federal workers like me are plotting furiously to subvert the Trump administration at every turn. Many on the left, too, hope that such a resistance is secretly working to save the nation from the worst impulses of President Trump.

They have it all wrong. Your federal bureaucracy under this president? Call it “The Complacent State” instead.

Like many in my cohort, I came into the government inspired by a president who convinced me there was still some truth to the gospel of American exceptionalism. A child of immigrants from South Korea, I also felt a duty to the society that welcomed my parents and allowed me and my siblings to thrive.

Over three tours abroad, I worked to spread what I believed were American values: freedom, fairness and tolerance. But more and more I found myself in a defensive stance, struggling to explain to foreign peoples the blatant contradictions at home.

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, I spoke of American openness and friendship at consulate events as my country carried out mass deportations and failed thousands of “dreamers.” I attended celebrations of Black History Month at our embassy in Lisbon as black communities in the United States demanded justice for Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and the victims of the mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. And in Vancouver, I touted the strength of the United States’ democracy at the consulate’s 2016 election-night party as a man who campaigned on racism, misogyny and wild conspiracy theories became president-elect.

Since then, I have seen Trump assert the moral equivalence of violent white nationalists and those who oppose them, denigrate immigrants from “shithole countries” and separate children from their parents at the border, only to place them in squalid detention centers.

But almost three years since his election, what I have not seen is organized resistance from within. To the contrary, two senior Foreign Service officers admonished me for risking my career when I signed an internal dissent cable against the ban on travelers from several majority-Muslim countries in January 2017. Among my colleagues at the State Department, I have met neither the unsung hero nor the cunning villain of Deep State lore. If the resistance does exist, it should be clear by this point that it has failed.

[From the archive: State Department dissent memo: ‘We are better than this ban’]

Instead, I am part of the Complacent State.

The Complacent State sighs when the president blocks travel by Muslim immigrants; shakes its head when he defends Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; averts its gaze from images of children in detention camps. Then it complies with orders.

Every day, we refuse visas based on administration priorities. We recite administration talking points on border security, immigration and trade. We plan travel itineraries, book meetings and literally hold doors open for the appointees who push Trump’s toxic agenda around the world.

So when I read a recent New York Times op-ed calling for the public shaming of the “midlevel functionaries who make the system run,” I squirmed in my seat. We rank-and-file, like the Justice Department lawyer who recently endured public scrutiny for defending the administration’s terrible treatment of detained children, don’t like to be called out. And when we are, we shrink behind a standard argument — that we are career officials serving nonpartisan institutions.

We should be named and shamed. But how should we respond? One thing I agree with the conspiracy theorists about: The Deep State, if it did exist, would be wrong. Ask to read the commission of any Foreign Service officer, and you’ll see that we are hired to serve “during the pleasure of the President of the United States.” That means we must serve this very partisan president.

Or else we should quit.

I’m ashamed of how long it took me to make this decision. My excuse might be disappointing, if familiar to many of my colleagues: I let career perks silence my conscience. I let free housing, the countdown to a pension and the prestige of representing a powerful nation overseas distract me from ideals that once seemed so clear to me. I can’t do that anymore.

My son, born in El Paso on the American side of that same Rio Grande where the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter were discovered, in the same city where 22 people were just killed by a gunman whose purported “manifesto” echoed the inflammatory language of our president, turned 7 this month. I can no longer justify to him, or to myself, my complicity in the actions of this administration. That’s why I choose to resign.

Read more:

From the archive: Ruth Marcus: If you work for Trump, quit now

John D. Feeley: Why I could no longer serve this president

Edward Price: I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.

Marc Thiessen: To the anonymous New York Times op-ed writer: If you can’t serve honorably, don’t serve at all

Nikki Haley: When I challenge the president, I do it directly. My anonymous colleague should have, too.

A letter from 149 African Americans who served in the Obama administration: We are African Americans, we are patriots, and we refuse to sit idly by

[From the archive: I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.]

Meridiano 47: número especial sobre o Juca Paranhos de Luis Claudio Villafañe

 Roundtable Review do livro “Juca Paranhos: o Barão do Rio Branco”, de Luis Cláudio Villafañe Gomes Santos

Introdução

·       Antonio Carlos LessaUniversidade de Brasília, Instituto de Relações Internacionais

·        https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8593-8708

·       Rogério de Souza FariasUniversidade de Brasília, Instituto de Relações Internacionais

·        http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6678-0984

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20889/M47e20001

Palavras-chave: História da Política Exterior do Brasil, Barão do Rio Branco, Política Externa da Primeira República

Resumo

Introdução ao Roundtable Review do Introdução ao Roundtable Review do livro “Juca Paranhos: o Barão do Rio Branco”, de Luis Cláudio Villafañe Gomes Santos (Villafañe, L.C. Juca Paranhos: o Barão do Rio Branco. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, 560p.).

Almeida, Paulo Roberto de. A economia política de Rio Branco. Meridiano 47, 20: e20007, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20007; 

Burns, E. Bradford. The unwritten alliance: Rio-Branco and Brazilian-American relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966. 

Alsina Junior, João Paulo. Rio Branco, grande estratégia e poder naval. São Paulo: Editora da FGV, 2015. 

Farias, Rogério de Souza. A esfinge reexaminada: o Barão do Rio Branco e a política doméstica. Meridiano 47, 20: e20002, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20002

Ferreira, Gabriela Nunes. (Barão do) Rio Branco, entre a Monarquia e a República. Meridiano 47, 20: e20003, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20003; 

Franchini Neto, Helio. Realpolitik e o instrumento militar na vida e na obra do Barão do Rio Branco. Meridiano 47, 20: e20004, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20004; 

Pontes, Kassius Diniz da Silva . Fracasso Relativo? A política de Rio Branco para os Estados Unidos. Meridiano 47, 20: e20005, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20005; 

Santoro, Maurício. Rio Branco, jornalista. Meridiano 47, 20: e20006, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20006; 

Santos, Luís Cláudio Villafañe G. Juca Paranhos: o Barão do Rio Branco. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, 560p. 

Santos, Luís Cláudio Villafañe G. Juca Paranhos, o Barão do Rio Branco: os comentários do autor. Meridiano 47, 20: e20008, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.20889/M47e20008

Rocha, Antônio Jorge Ramalho da e Lessa, Antônio Carlos. Meridiano 47: Relações Internacionais sob o prisma de Brasília. Meridiano 47, v. 1, n. 1, p. 1-2. 2000.