For Bolsonaro Macri it was already | Opinion

In the threatening statements of Jair Bolsonaro against Alberto Fernández, there are two good and one bad news. The first of the good: Bolsonaro actually admits that Fernandez will be the elected president. Second advantage: Bolsonaro has already begun to negotiate mentally with Fernández. The negatives: it follows that the negotiation will be very difficult.

It is convenient to avoid the titles with which the news has been presented by other means and to quote the Brazilian President in extenso:

* "If the opposition wins, we want the trade opening to continue as we did with President Mauricio Macri."

* "The defeat of Macri can put all Mercosur in jeopardy."

* "Otherwise, we will meet Paraguay and Uruguay and take a similar decision to that taken against Asunción."

Bolsonaro made these statements during a tour in China and Japan.

The reference on Paraguay is of no value because this country was suspended from Mercosur after the coup against Fernando Lugo 2012. It is better to stop at rest. Although the Brazilian president has maintained the tough and conflictual style of always, his remarks highlight for the first time the fact that, for Brasilia, Macri has already lost. In recent months, all his statements had been extremely intrusive in Argentina's domestic politics. The Brazilian president's alibi for his campaign in favor of Macri was irritation caused by Fernández's visit to Lula in Curitiba prison. In Spain, the candidate of the Frente de Todos insisted with his bet and began an act at the Congress of Deputies shouting "free Lula", a slogan repeated by the participants. Fernández and his right-hand man in international contacts, Felipe Solá, have always claimed Lula as a historic leader in the fight against poverty and questioned the legality of his sentence.

Until now, Bolsonaro has only intervened to present Macri as the ideal candidate and Fernández-Fernández as the cuckoo. More now Beyond ideological sympathies, Macri had already left for Brazil.

The progressive liberalization of Mercosur would consist, for the Brazilian government, in reducing the common external tariff which protects to a certain extent the industrial production of Brazil and Argentina, the two countries where the industry is strong.

Bolsonaro and the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, also want to have their hands free to negotiate agreements with other blocs or with the United States.

Guedes, ultra-liberal, has maintained that he himself defined it as a "strategic relationship" with Wilbur Ross, Donald Trump's trade secretary. He has been a director for 25 years of the Rothschild Group, which specializes in finance since 1811. It is not yet clear whether this strategic relationship would automatically imply a free trade agreement between Brazil and the United States. would of course be the de facto liquidation of Mercosur.

On the commercial side, Washington is already doing very well with Brasilia. In 2018, its trade surplus was $ 8,300 million. In the strategic area, US activity, like all-powerful, is one-to-one bargaining with other countries. In this sense, the White House wants to weaken or dismantle Mercosur. Except that, yes, a stable southern cone is considered necessary.

The question is what will the big Brazilian manufacturers do? They have already received from Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro a labor reform that removes the power of trade unions and a pension reform that makes it more unlikely to get a decent pension. Large industry is diversified, articulated or linked to banks and largely transnational. Managers think like Guedes. But at the close of the balance sheets, they also calculate that Argentina is Brazil's third largest trading partner.

After calling Bolsonaro misogynistic, Fernández notably publicly announced that he would refrain from any new adjectives and would negotiate with Brazil from one state to the other. It does not matter who is in government. Bolsonaro will not make things easier. It is clear that AF can only succeed if it identifies the important players in the Brazilian economy who wish to continue to be partners with Argentina – not by ideology, but by interest and convenience – and to work on it. It's okay? The candidate is a patient politician. He knows that the South American neighborhood is too difficult to be impulsive.

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