Under the impetus of increased military cooperation, Trump calls Bolsonaro to a free trade agreement

RIO DE JANEIRO.- Confident in his personal harmony with
Donald Trump and wary of European questions about his lack of interest in the environment, the Brazilian president
Jair Bolsonaro folded yesterday to go to a
free trade agreement with
United States instead of guaranteeing the fulfillment of the agreement already concluded with the European Union (EU). Last night, while the governments of the two largest economies of the continent announced that
negotiations had officially begun for a trade pact, Washington concretely encouraged Bolsonaro to keep its promise to declare
Brazil ally extra preferential
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

"Everyone is worried about some pitfalls in this regard (the Mercosur-EU agreement) .The signing of the agreement with the United States could perhaps pose a problem by signing the agreement. 39; agreement with the US. It's even above the intelligence issue. " , the Brazilian president said last night, after meeting with the US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, who arrives today in Buenos Aires as part of a regional tour including Brazil, our country and Peru.

Already Wednesday, after an event in São Paulo of the US Chamber of Commerce in Brazil, Ross had issued a warning about it. "It is important that nothing in this agreement (Mercosur-EU) contradicts a free trade agreement with the United States," he said.

In June, at the G20 summit in Osaka (Japan), Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and the EU announced that after 20 years of difficult talks, negotiations for an agreement between the two blocs, which would represent a potential market of 800 million people. Although the agreement is undergoing technical and legal review and comes into force only in about two years, once the parliaments of all the countries concerned have ratified it, the France – which has always expressed the resistance of its agricultural sector and criticized Brazil's lack of a firm policy to preserve the environment and protect the Amazon, has announced that it will carry out a "comprehensive national badessment and independent "of the agreement.

Currently, the EU is Brazil's second largest trading partner behind China; The United States occupy the third position and Argentina the fourth.

Unlike the French government Emmanuel Macron, the Trump government has not made the issue of the environment one of its priorities. Completely the opposite; Like Bolsonaro, the US president is skeptical about the role economic activities play in climate change and global warming.

On the contrary, there are other major obstacles to a free trade agreement between the United States and Brazil. The United States has a highly developed and competitive manufacturing industry against which Brazil would be at a great disadvantage, and Brazil produces many of the same agricultural products (sugar, ethanol, corn, orange juice, meat) that Americans protect. by large subsidies.

"The benefits are so important that when we see the obstacles, it is necessary to see that certain interests can be defined," said Brazilian Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes, who also met Ross.

According to Mercosur's legal framework, any free trade agreement between one of its members and another country should be authorized by the other partners. It will take time, but in the meantime, Brazil intends to advance other aspects of the bilateral relationship with the United States, which would not mean a change in Mercosur's commercial tariffs, such as investments, services, government procurement, security and defense, etc.

"When we finished (the meeting with Ross), our Secretary of Foreign Trade and International Relations, Marcos Troyjo, asked: Are we officially in negotiations? And the answer was: Certainly we (in the United States) want that, "he said enthusiastically. Guedes to the press.

According to the minister, the Americans began their talks when Brazil announced that it was ready to open its juicy market of nearly 210 million people. "We want to send auto parts and they have wheat to send (today, a large part of the wheat bought by Brazil comes from Argentina) .They then said we would let them into their wheat and we responded that they would let us in our auto parts, but the scale is much older, "sought to simplify Guedes.

For his part, Secretary of State Troyjo stressed that Brazil should take advantage of the "favorable current situation" for a tariff negotiation with the United States, with reference to the political alignment between Trump, Bolsonaro and Mauricio Macri in Argentina. "There is an excellent link, a convergence of very big proposals between the three presidents and we can take advantage of the political will and purpose to move this process forward," he said.

From last month until the end of the year, Brazil badumes the rotating presidency of Mercosur and could take the opportunity to set the agenda for the discussions.

Without missing any opportunity, the Trump government has already encouraged Bolsonaro and, last night, it officially designated Brazil as a "privileged extra-NATO ally", as it had promised after the chief's visit. Brazilian state in Washington last March. Argentina was until now the only country in Latin America to enjoy this status since 1998, thanks to Carlos Menem's diplomatic policy of "carnal relations" with George Bush. The designation "preferential ally extra-NATO" (as well as Australia, Israel, Egypt, Japan, South Korea and Pakistan, Taiwan, among others, Colombia being the only country in the world) Latin America to be accepted directly as "NATO partner") allows countries to strengthen their military cooperation with the United States: access to cheaper weapons and equipment, participate in bidding the Pentagon for the sale of products, priority training with the US Army and facilities for the purchase of space technologies. Among the Brazilian military, which has several representatives in the Bolsonaro government, these possibilities are very well seen.

As part of his desire for a direct alignment on Trump, Bolsonaro recently indicated that he also wished that one of his three political children, MP Eduardo Bolsonaro, chairman of the business commission Foreigners of the lower house, the new ambbadador of Brazil in Washington It is expected that the US administration suddenly adopts its "approval". The nomination must then be approved by the Senate External Relations Commission, where the Bolsonaro government has already begun to eliminate traps with specific concessions.