Posted on 02/23/2020 4:24:20 AM PST by Kaslin
The election in 2018 of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has shown that South Americans are pivoting away from socialism and towards free market economics. This is a unique time in Central and South American politics with many nations rotating away from China and Russia towards the United States and other free market nations. Nations that show a healthy respect for property rights, low taxes, low regulatory policies and respect for intellectual property rights should be rewarded with free trade agreements that benefit both economies.
Right now, the United States is in a trade war with China with ongoing negotiations to resolve disputes over tariffs, intellectual property theft and corporate subsidies. There are large gulfs between the way the United States governs with a light touch regulatory scheme and the heavy-handed Chinese involvement in the economy. It makes geopolitical and economic sense for the two biggest economic superpowers to engage in commerce, yet these are nations trying to peacefully co-exist with vastly differing economic models.
According to the Office of U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. has free trade agreements with the South American nations of Chile, Columbia and Peru, yet none with Brazil. According to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook Database, the United States has the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world. The next highest in North, Central or South America is not Canada (#10), nor Mexico (#15); the next highest nation ranked in GDP in that region of the world is Brazil (#9). It is ironic that the two biggest economies in the Americas are currently on the same page with economic policies, yet with no free trade agreement.
With the recent shift under President Bolsonaro towards free market capitalism, and away from socialism, it is time for President Donald J. Trump to reward Brazil’s turn toward freedom with a free trade agreement.
The election in Brazil shifted influence away from China and Russia and toward the West. I wrote in Townhall on October 9, 2018, just before the Workers’ Party was tossed out of office, the election in Brazil “may help determine if Central and South America will move away from the corrupt socialist policies we see being promoted in Venezuela and Cuba toward free market-oriented policies promoted by the likes of a candidate who is likely to be the next President of Brazil.” With “The Trump of the Tropics” Bolsonaro winning that election in Brazil, it is time for Brazil and the United States to work closer together on military readiness and economic trade issues.
Years of rule by the corrupt Workers’ Party put Brazil in with a very low ranking in economic freedom in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Brazil has a low growth rate and high unemployment thanks to 13 years of rule by the corrupt Marxist Workers' Party. Policies being implemented by the new government are showing progress towards more economic freedom.
Brazilian leaders are saying all the right things. On September 11, 2019, Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araujo identified the big challenge for civilization as "not climate change,” but “ideology. Araujo said that the new challenge is “globalism” with “cultural Marxism infiltrated in the institutions.” Coming from a nation with an economy poisoned by years of Marxist ideology stagnating the economy and allying with communist nations, Aruajo understands more clearly than most Americans the need for freedom, free markets and moral leadership. In November of 2019, Brazil’s Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes came to the United States to make the case that Brazil’s dismantling of the socialist state constructed by the Workers' Party is well under way. Guedes holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.
There is one big obstruction to a free trade agreement with Brazil – protectionism by some in the Trump administration. Oliver Stuenkel wrote in Foreign Policy on December 6, 2019 that recently imposed steel and aluminum tariffs have moved the relationship in the wrong direction. Stuenkel argued “as the most pro-American president in modern Brazilian history, Bolsonaro has put establishing a strong alliance with the United States at the center of his foreign policy from the start.” Early in the administration, Bolsonaro took a hard line against China and Araujo lamented the influence of “Maoist China” in South America. Guedes met with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross a few months ago in the hopes of better relations. Unfortunately, the Trump faction supporting hard line trade policies and protectionism beat out the pro-freedom factions in the government who would support free trade agreements with strong U.S. allies like Brazil.
It is time to abandon protectionist tariffs and reward President Bolsonaro with a free trade agreement. That will help Bolsonaro secure his position as a pro-American president in the largest nation in South America while benefitting the United States by having a large, strong military and economic ally in South America.
I don’t favor giving out Free Trade Agreements (FTA) like candy to every country because we want to support them, etc. This is the same trap the US fell into after World War 2 and that Donald Trump is working on getting us out of.
The FTA would be great for Brazil but no great for America mainly because there’s too much of a difference economically between Brazil and the US. A real FTA would not benefit Brazil, either.
As someone who does a great deal of business in Brazil, I fully support a smart trade agreement and trust Trump to create exactly that.
Brazil would allow US companies to sell competitively in a growing nation that is currently getting way too much from China.
Come US goods get a 60% tariff while Chinese goods get little to none.
Open it up and let us cement a free, capitalistic Brazil for generations to come!
To both sides.
Tariffs should be fair and uniform levied against specific products we want to repatriate the manufacture of same to the USA ( which is all of them IMO ). Tariffs should not target or favor a specific country. The USA still doesn't get it.
Tariff products and not countries. This is stupid. We have to stop this. We need a uniform across the board import tariff. STOP THE SHENANIGANS!!!
Question: With tariffs on goods from China to US, are Chinese items now relatively cheaper in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, etc?
We have a trade deal with Colombia and Peru. Plus some others have expressed an interest.
I am not against good relations between the US and Brazil, but like everything in DC, FOLLOW THE MONEY to the swamp rats who are in it for themselves.
Free trade per the original agreement is an abysmal failure. Work out an exceptionally favorable agreement that we can both win on while raising our people together, not criminal lefties.
I adore meu Brasil, but not enough to give them free anything. Let them prove they are a friend.
O sapo de fora nao chia.
With a logical trade agreements in place with Chile, Mexico,
Canada adding Brazil and India would insulate the US from having to deal with China. The loss of revenue would hurt China greatly and reduce their ability to be “troublesome”.
I, too, like this Hair guy - but maybe give a break to Globalism for a bit, until we find out what’s in store for us regarding the cutoff of goods from China. At least then, we may be able to identify some priorities (such as drug production) which need to be protected here.
To Hell with “Free Trade” — it’s inevitably an exploitation of the US taxpayer.
What you desire is the transformation of America into Brazil North
No the opposite you loser. When you import people and product from the 3rd world you import their standard of living. Globullist traitors should STFU. The worm is turning against you. Lay low fool.
My goals for trade would be the following - and who knows, maybe Trump and the Republicans will figure it out:
1) Identify and PROTECT strategic capabilities. I don’t really care who makes X-Boxes, but I do care about antibiotics (since both my wife and I would be dead now without them).
2) When protecting strategic capabilities, be sure to include literally everything involved with their production. For example, if table salt is needed for saline solutions, then make sure we’re producing enough salt for that. Likewise, if a factory uses a snazzy computer to run its processes, and that computer uses parts from China, figure out backup capability (either no computer, a domestic computer [good luck], or a stockpile of spare imported computers for 10 years).
3) Make companies WANT to come back to the United States. They didn’t go to China to produce things because they wanted to hang out at the Great Wall, they went there because importers would have undercut them and shut down their US production if they did not go to China (or somewhere off-shore). The two really big problems are environmental rules and unions. They need to be dealt with, or we’ll be a much poorer country as we pull back from Globalism. So, for the environment, use COMMON SENSE regulations, and also base them on strategic need. If it means using CFCs for example to make computer chips, then allow that, rather than holding up our noses out of principle, while China does it anyway. Stuff like that.
A 20% across the board import tariff solves all of the USA's fiscal and economic problems. That and restrict LEGAL immigration to almost zero new immigrants per year.
Sure throw away jobs, that will get the GOP a majority. /sarc
Environmental rules add a tiny fraction as a percent to retail costs. Also, unions are almost non existent. Those are straw man arguments. Only a true protectionist can be a Patriot.
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