The Inter-American Dialogue’s work in the Southern Cone examines opportunities and challenges facing Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile. Issues include energy, finance, economics and trade, the environment, and international relations.
Rather than building a robust partnership with the United States, Bolsonaro’s current trajectory may end up with Brazil facing a largely indifferent Washington. Yes, Trump did declare this week that he wants a free trade deal with Brazil, but even if Brazil can find a way around Mercosur’s rules and begin to pursue a bilateral accord, negotiations will take several years to complete. A successful outcome is not out of the question, but it will require to thoroughly overhaul its highly protected economy, which is among the most insular in the world.
Brazil has vast oil reserves, but can the Bolsonaro government get the energy to market? Lisa Viscidi tells Richard Miles of CSIS that reforms are already in place that will enable oil production “to take off.” The real obstacles are the financial stability of Petrobras, the shaky state oil conglomerate, and the monopoly that the state has on most aspects of energy production, delivery, and even retail sales.
After 20 years of on-and-off negotiations, leaders from the European Union and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc announced late last month that they had reached a sweeping trade agreement encompassing 800 million people and almost a quarter of the global economy. In an email interview with WPR, Bruno Binetti, a Buenos Aires-based research fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the many obstacles standing in the way of the deal’s successful implementation.
Es obvio que la administración Trump preferiría ver un segundo gobierno de Mauricio Macri. Sin embargo, de manera realista, ese escenario ahora parece altamente improbable. La relación de los Estados Unidos con un gobierno liderado por Alberto Fernández dependerá de la medida en que el nuevo presidente podrá seguir un curso más moderado y pragmático que el representado por el kirchnerismo y particularmente de su vicepresidenta Cristina Kirchner.
El candidato [Alberto Fernández] ha dado señales de que va a tener una política y una postura más abierta a la comunidad internacional, financiera, con Estados Unidos y otros actores fundamentales.
