Bolsonaro Brazil rediscovers Argentina

From the day of the election victory on October 28, President Jair Bolsonaro and his cabinet had to change their leadership strategy, both in the foreign and domestic sectors. This is clearly the case of the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes. That day, in the evening, he told a group of journalists that Argentina was not a priority. Today, his vision is very different, as is that of his boss. Last week, the two countries expressed at different times a legitimate alarm: the financial and economic crisis affecting the country undermines the validity of the "new law" as a regional model.

This is not the fear that the Brazilian economy will be affected by the "tango" effect, as it was called here by the crash, in 2001. Although the economic activity of Brazil has recorded a lower performance than expected, With the industrial sector declining, Bolsonaro has a powerful dollar support (380 billion North American currency) that protects it from any "virus" destabilizer. Of course, this is what led Guedes to hope for a capacity for autonomy of Brazil in the region, which allowed him to do without the use of Castilian porteño. It was more than enough with English.

This explains the sequence of international trips of the Brazilian president. He was first in the United States (March 18); he then crossed Chile, where held a meeting of the Lima group (March 22) and finally in Israel, the first days of April. At that time, his agenda was not to stop in Buenos Aires, which he will do on June 6 in a decision made last week. And it was in this context that two other events occurred: the first was the landing of Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo in Ezeiza to meet with Minister Jorge Faurie, while he was received at La Rosada by Mauricio Macri. The second act took place last Thursday in Rio de Janeiro and was starring Minister Nicolás Dujovne and his colleague Guedes.

The decision of Bolsonaro and his team to adopt a more "proactive" attitude towards the Argentine government has been remarkable on both occasions.. The support was categorically stated: "We support President Macri and the stabilization effort undertaken by Minister Dujovne," said Guedes. Bolsonaro himself was more categorical, for whom the triumph of opposition to the Argentine presidential elections would be almost a "catastrophe". At a meeting with reporters at the Palacio del Plbadto, he said: "We do not want a new Venezuela in South America".

In the light of a possible defeat of the Macrists, Bolsonaro and Guedes understood that they could not "manage" the region without counting on Argentina. In any case, that is not enough for Chile or Colombia, because, whether we like it or not, the anchorage of Brazil is in the southern cone. A failure of the Argentine liberal-conservative model, which badumes more eclectic authorities, will result in the loss of a "partner" in the entrepreneurship of the new right, which may cause them to feel like a kind of Embarrbading isolation for the country.