The Global Intelligence Files,
files released so far...
2516
The Global Intelligence Files

### Index pages

List of Releases

### by Date of Document

unspecified
2001
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

### by Date of Release

2001-03-13
2010-03-10
2011-03-05
2011-03-15
2012-01-29
2012-02-27
2012-02-28
2012-02-29
2012-03-01
2012-03-02
2012-03-03
2012-03-04
2012-03-05
2012-03-06
2012-03-07
2012-03-08
2012-03-09
2012-03-10
2012-03-11
2012-03-12
2012-03-13
2012-03-14
2012-03-15
2012-03-16
2012-03-17
2012-03-19
2012-03-20
2012-03-23
2012-03-25
2012-03-26
2012-03-27
2012-04-01
2012-04-02
2012-04-24
2012-04-26
2012-04-30
2012-05-10
2012-06-18
2012-06-20
2012-07-01
2012-07-24
2012-07-28
2012-07-29
2012-07-30
2012-07-31
2012-08-01
2012-08-02
2012-08-05
2012-08-06
2012-08-07
2012-08-08
2012-08-09
2012-08-10
2012-08-11
2012-08-12
2012-08-13
2012-08-14
2012-08-15
2012-08-16
2012-08-17
2012-08-18
2012-08-19
2012-08-20
2012-08-21
2012-08-22
2012-08-23
2012-08-24
2012-08-25
2012-08-26
2012-08-27
2012-08-29
2012-08-30
2012-08-31
2012-09-01
2012-09-02
2012-09-03

### Our Partners

ABC Color - Paraguay
Al Akhbar - Lebanon
Al Masry Al Youm - Egypt
Asia Sentinel - Hong Kong
Bivol - Bulgaria
Carta Capital - Brazil
CIPER - Chile
Dawn Media - Pakistan
L'Espresso - Italy
La Repubblica - Italy
La Jornada - Mexico
La Nacion - Costa Rica
Malaysia Today - Malaysia
McClatchy - United States
Nawaat - Tunisia
NDR/ARD - Germany
Owni - France
Pagina 12 - Argentina
Philip Dorling - Fairfax media contributor - Australia
Plaza Publica - Guatemala
Publica - Brazil
Publico.es - Spain
Rolling Stone - United States
Russian Reporter - Russia
Ta Nea - Greece
Taraf - Turkey
The Hindu - India
The Yes Men - Bhopal Activists
Sunday Star-Times - New Zealand

### Community resources

Supporters Support Wikileaks Follow us on Twitter Twitter this Follow us on Facebook

courage is contagious

# The Global Intelligence Files

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

## The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography

Released on 2012-08-02 04:00 GMT

Email-ID | 492003
Date | 2011-07-19 15:04:26
To | krijgsman@sympatico.ca

Stratfor logo
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
July 14, 2011 | 1216 GMT
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
STRATFOR
Editor*s Note: This is the 15th in a series of STRATFOR monographs on
the geopolitics of countries influential in world affairs.
RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGE
* Geopolitical Monographs: In-depth Country Analysis
South America is a geographically challenging land mass. The bulk of its
territory is located in the equatorial zone, making nearly all of the
northern two-thirds of its territory tropical. Jungle territory is the
most difficult sort of biome to adapt for human economic activity.
Clearing the land alone carries onerous costs. Soils are poor. Diseases
run rampant. The climate is often too humid to allow grains to ripen.
Even where rivers are navigable, often their banks are too muddy for
construction, as with the Amazon.
As the tropics dominate South America, the continent*s economic and
political history has been problematic. Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and
French Guiana are fully within the tropical zone, and as such always
have faced difficulties in achieving economic and political stability,
though the discovery of [IMG] oil in Venezuela improved that country*s
economic trajectory. Throughout the tropical zones nearly all of the
population lives within a few dozen kilometers of the coast. For the
most part, however, those coasts are not naturally sculpted to encourage
interaction with the outside world. Natural ports * deepwater or
otherwise * are few and far between.
There are, however, two geographic features on the continent that break
this tropical monotony.
The first is the Andean mountain chain. The Andes run along the
continent*s western edge, giving rise to a handful of littoral and
transmountain cultures physically separated from the continent*s eastern
bulk and thus largely left to develop according to their own devices.
Colombia and Ecuador straddle the tropics and the Andes, with their
economic cores not being coastal, but instead elevated in the somewhat
cooler and dryer Andean valleys, which mitigates the difficulties of the
tropics somewhat. Farther south are the arid transmountain states of
Peru and Bolivia. Peru has achieved some degree of wealth by largely
ignoring its own interior except when seeking resource extraction
opportunities, instead concentrating its scant capital on the de facto
city-state of Lima. In contrast, landlocked Bolivia is trapped in a
perennial struggle between the poor highlanders of the Altiplano and the
agriculturally rich region of the lowland Medialuna.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
The combination of mountains and jungle greatly limits the degree to
which states in this arc * from French Guiana in the northeast to
Bolivia in the southwest * can integrate with each other or the outside
world. In all cases, basic transport is extremely difficult; tropical
diseases are often a serious issue; there are few good ports;
agricultural development is both more labor and capital intensive
compared to more traditional food-producing regions; humidity and heat
hinder conventional grain production; and the ruggedness of the
mountains raises the costs of everything.
Historically, the only way these states have achieved progress toward
economic development is by accepting dependence on an external (and
usually extraregional) power willing to provide investment capital.
Without this, these states simply lack the capital generation capacity
to meet their unique and staggering infrastructure challenges.
Consequently, the broader region is severely underdeveloped, and the
residents of most of these states are generally quite poor. While some
may be able to achieve relative wealth under the right mix of
circumstances, none has the ability to be a significant regional * much
less global * power.
The second exception to the tropical dominance of South America is the
temperate lands of the Southern Cone. Here, the summers are dry enough
to allow traditional grains to ripen, while cooler weather * especially
winter insect kills * limits the impact of disease outbreaks. Unlike the
scattered populations of the Andean region, the Southern Cone is one
large stretch of mostly flat, moderately watered territory. The bulk of
that land lies in Argentina, with significantly smaller pieces in
Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. The only remaining country on the
continent is where the temperate Southern Cone overlaps with the Andean
mountain zone: Chile, one of the world*s most physically isolated
states. It takes longer to fly from Santiago to Lima than it does to fly
from London to Moscow, and longer to sail from Santiago to Buenos Aires
than it does from New York City to London. Chile consequently does not
participate significantly in the politics of the Southern Cone.
In stark contrast to the mountains and jungle that dominate the majority
of South America, the Southern Cone flatlands are the best land on the
continent. Their flatness, combined with their natural prairies, lowers
the cost of construction, and the temperate climate makes them rich
agricultural zones. But the real advantage lies in the region*s river
structure. The Parana, Uruguay and Paraguay rivers combined with the Rio
de la Plata * a massive estuary that empties into the Atlantic between
contemporary Buenos Aires and Montevideo * are all navigable for a great
portion of their length.
Moving goods via water costs about 10 to 30 times less than moving the
same goods by truck. Such riverine transport systems therefore generate
massive amounts of capital with little difficulty compared to
land-transport systems. Collectively, this river network overlaying the
agricultural flatlands is known as the Rio de la Plata region.
These rivers are particularly valuable for agricultural regions such as
the Rio de la Plata. Wheat, corn, soybeans and the like suffer from a
weak value-to-bulk ratio * oftentimes transporting them great distances
can only be done at an economic loss. Water transport allows for
foodstuffs to cheaply and easily be brought not just downstream but to
the ocean and then the wider world. Russia presents a strong contrast to
the Rio de la Plata region. Its famines often directly result from the
inability to bring foodstuffs to the cities efficiently because its
navigable rivers are not well situated * meaning foodstuffs must be
transported by truck or train.
The most important geographic fact on the continent is that the Rio de
la Plata region*s rivers are navigable both independently and
collectively via a system of canals and locks. Only the Greater
Mississippi River network of North America has more kilometers of
interconnected maritime transport options. This interconnectivity allows
greater economies of scale, greater volumes of capital generation and
larger populations, and it greatly enhances the establishment of a
single political authority. In contrast, the separate rivers of the
North European Plain have given rise to multiple, often mutually
hostile, nationalities. Argentina controls the mouth of the Rio de la
Plata and the bulk of the navigable stretches of river. This leaves the
Uruguayans, Paraguayans and Brazilians at a disadvantage within the
region. (Brazilian power is greater overall than Argentine power, but
not in the critical capital-generating geography of the Rio de la Plata
region.)
The Brazilian Geography
Most of Brazil*s territory does not lie within these Southern Cone
lands. Instead, roughly one-third of Brazil*s 8.5 million square
kilometers is composed of vast tracts of challenging jungle, with the
Amazon Basin being the most intractable of all. While there are many
potential opportunities to exploit minerals, they come with daunting
infrastructure costs.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
South of the Amazon Basin lies a unique region known as the cerrado, a
vast tropical savannah with extremely acidic soils. However, because the
heat and humidity is far less intense than in the jungle, the cerrado
can be made economically viable by brute force. The cost, however, is
extreme. In addition to the massive infrastructure challenges * the
cerrado lacks any navigable rivers * the land must in essence be
terraformed for use: cleared, leveled and fertilized on an industrial
scale to make it amenable to traditional crops. There is also the issue
of distance. The cerrado is an inland region, so shipping any supplies
to or produce from the region comes at a hefty transport cost. Brazil
has spent the greater part of the past three generations engaged in
precisely this sort of grand effort.
Luckily for the Brazilians, not all of Brazil*s lands are so difficult.
About 600,000 square kilometers of Brazil is considered traditionally
arable. While this represents only 7 percent of the country*s total land
area, that still constitutes a piece of arable territory roughly the
size of Texas or France. All of that land lies in the country*s southern
reaches. But much of that territory lies in the interior, where it is
not easily accessible. Brazil*s true core territories are less than one
quarter of this 7 percent, about the size of Tunisia or Montana,
straddling the area where the tropical zone gives way to the temperate
lands of the Southern Cone. These areas formed the core of Brazil*s
original settlements in the early colonial period, and these lands
formed the population core of Brazil for the first three centuries of
its existence. As such, the topography of these lands has had an almost
deterministic impact on Brazil*s development. Understanding that
topography and its legacy is central to understanding what is empowering
Brazil to evolve * and hampering Brazil from evolving * into a major
power in the years to come.
Two obvious characteristics stand out regarding this core Brazilian
region. First, it is semi-tropical, so development in the region faces a
somewhat less intense version of the challenges described above for
fully tropical zones. Second, and more critical, the Brazilian interior
is a raised plateau * called the Brazilian Shield * which directly abuts
Brazil*s Atlantic coast along nearly the entirety of the country*s
southeastern perimeter. The drop from the shield to the Atlantic is
quite steep, with most of the coast appearing as a wall when viewed from
the ocean * the source of the dramatic backdrops of most Brazilian
coastal cities. This wall is called the [IMG] Grand Escarpment, and most
Brazilian cities in this core region * Rio de Janeiro, Vitoria, Santos
and Porto Alegre * are located on small, isolated pockets of relatively
flat land where the escarpment falls to the sea.
The primary problem this enclave topography presents is achieving
economies of scale. In normal development patterns, cities form around
some sort of core economic asset, typically a river*s head of navigation
(the maximum inland point that a sizable cargo vessel can reach) or a
port or nexus of other transport options. The city then spreads out,
typically growing along the transport corridors, reflecting that access
to those transport corridors provides greater economic opportunities and
lower economic costs. So long as somewhat flat land remains available,
the city can continue growing at low cost. In time, nearby cities often
start merging into each other, allowing them to share labor, capital,
infrastructure and services. Economies of scale proliferate and such
megacities begin generating massive amounts of capital and skilled labor
from the synergies.
Megacities * such as New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo,
Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Shanghai * form the core of the global
economic system. This *standard* development pattern has been repeated
the world over. The premier American example is the *megalopolis* region
of cities on the American Eastern Seaboard stretching from Washington to
Boston, encompassing such major locations as Baltimore, Philadelphia,
New York, Hartford and Providence. In Europe, a similar conglomeration
contains the many cities of the German Rhine Valley. In both cases,
major and minor cities alike merge into an urban/suburban conglomeration
where the resources of each location are shared with and bolstered by
the others. In all such cases, the common characteristic is the
existence of land upon which to expand.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
That land is precisely what Brazil*s core territory lacks. The Grand
Escarpment comes right down to the ocean throughout the Brazilian
southern coast. Brazil*s cities, therefore, are forced to develop on
small enclaves of relatively flat land in the few areas where the
escarpment has not pushed all the way to the sea. The lack of a coastal
plain means no small cities can form between the major cities. Any
infrastructure built by one city never serves another city, and linking
the cities requires climbing up the escarpment onto the shield itself,
traversing the shield and then going back down the escarpment to the
other cities, a difficult and costly endeavor in terms of both time and
engineering. Because Brazil does not have direct access to the navigable
rivers of the Rio de la Plata region, it has to scrounge for capital to
apply to this capital-intensive project. Absolute limitations on land
area also drive up the cost of that land, injecting strong inflation
into the mix right at the beginning and raising development costs.
Enclavic geography is not something that can be *grown out of* or
*developed around.* The topography is constant, and these cities simply
cannot synergize each other * a modern, low capital-cost city cannot be
built on the side of a cliff. Moreover, since these enclaves are
Brazil*s primary points of interaction with the outside world, they
represent a constant, permanent restriction on Brazil*s ability to grow.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
To this day, Brazil has very few major highways and railways because
even where the topography does allow for the possibility, the costs
still are much higher than in flatter lands farther south. The country
lacks a major coastal road system, as the escarpment is simply too steep
and too close to the coast. Following the Brazilian coastline makes
clear how Brazil*s coastal roads are almost exclusively two-lane, and
the coastal cities * while dramatic * are tiny and crammed into whatever
pockets of land they can find. And most of the country is still without
a rail network; much of that soy, corn and rice that the country has
become famous for exporting reaches the country*s ports by truck, the
most expensive way to transport bulk goods.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
STRATFOR photo
The Grand Escarpment drops almost directly down to the coast in most
portions of southern Brazil. This photograph vividly illustrates how the
Grand Escarpment starkly limits Rio de Janeiro*s development. Brazil*s
southern coastal cities have developed along similar patterns, lacking
the traditional hinterlands of major cities elsewhere in the world.
The one exception to the rule is Sao Paulo state, centered on the city
of the same name. Only Sao Paulo has sufficient flat lands to follow a
more standard development pattern and thus achieve any economies of
scale. It is also the only portion of Brazil that possesses anything
resembling the modern, integrated infrastructure that follows more
traditional development patterns. Unsurprisingly, this single state
accounts for more than one-third of Brazil*s gross domestic product
(GDP) despite only serving as home to one-fifth of the country*s
population. As recently as 1950, Sao Paulo state produced more than
one-half Brazil*s economic output.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
Unfortunately, Sao Paulo is not a coastal city. The escarpment at Sao
Paulo is too steep and the coastal enclave * the port of Santos * is too
small to take full advantage of Sao Paulo*s potential. Sao Paulo sits at
an elevation of about 800 meters atop the Brazilian Shield, some 70
kilometers inland. (In comparison, the U.S. city at the Mississippi
River*s head of navigation, Minneapolis, Minn., sits at less than 200
meters elevation despite being 3,000 kilometers inland.) This sharp
elevation change helps mitigate the climatic impact of the region*s
near-tropical conditions that predominate on the coast, but comes at the
dauntingly high capital and engineering costs required to link the city
and state to the coast. So while Sao Paulo is indeed a major economic
center, it is not one deeply hardwired into Brazil*s coastal cities or
to the world at large.
The lack of economies of scale and the difficulty of integrating local
infrastructure forces bottlenecks. The worst of those bottlenecks occur
where the coastal enclaves interact with the outside world * in Brazil*s
ports * and it is here that Brazil faces the biggest limiting factor in
achieving economic breakout. Brazil is correctly thought of as a major
exporter of any number of raw commodities, but the hostility of its
geography to shipping and the inability of its cities to integrate have
curtailed port development drastically. The top seven Brazilian ports
combined have less loading capacity than the top U.S. port, New Orleans,
and all Brazilian ports combined have considerably less loading capacity
than the top two U.S. ports, New Orleans and Houston.
Building a more sustainable Brazil cannot be done on the coast; there
simply is not enough land there to feed a growing nation. But climbing
up the Grand Escarpment to develop the interior introduces a new
problem.
The coastal ridge at the top of the Grand Escarpment also divides
drainage basins. Within a few dozen kilometers of the southeastern
coast, South American rivers flow west, not east, ultimately emptying
into the Rio de la Plata network. As the early Brazilian cities
attempted to develop interior hinterlands, those hinterlands found
themselves more economically intertwined with Argentine and Paraguayan
lands to the south than with their parent communities to the east. For
many in the interior it was cheaper, easier and faster to float products
down the rivers to the megaport of Buenos Aires than to lug them by land
up and over the Brazilian coastal mountain ranges and down the Grand
Escarpment to the middling disconnected ports of coastal Brazil.
Similarly, it was far easier to sail down the Atlantic coast and up the
Rio de la Plata Basin onto the Parana than expend the cost of building
on-land infrastructure. Brazil*s early efforts to develop integration
within its own territories paradoxically led to an economic dependence
upon its southern neighbors that weakened intra-Brazilian relationships.
Those southern neighbors took advantage of this situation, leaving
Brazil struggling to control its own land. Unlike the U.S. independence
experience, in which all of the colonies were part of the same
administration and battled as one against their colonial overlord, South
America was a patchwork of different entities, all of which fought for
their independence in the same 15-year period. Paraguay achieved
independence in 1811, Argentina in 1818 and Brazil in 1823. Immediately
upon independence, the region*s new states struggled for control of the
waterways that held the key to being the dominant, integrated economic
power of the Southern Cone. Since Brazil was the last of the region*s
states to break away from its former colonial master, it had the least
time to consolidate in preparation for post-independence wars, and its
enclave nature made such consolidation far more challenging than that of
other Southern Cone states. Brazil accordingly did very badly in the
ensuing conflicts.
Those early wars resulted in Uruguay*s separation from Brazil and the
removal of Brazilian authority to above the heads-of-navigation on all
of the Rio de la Plata region*s rivers. All of the rivers* navigable
lengths were now shared between Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, leaving
capital-poor Brazil sequestered in its highland semi-tropical
territories. Argentina and Paraguay rose rapidly in economic and
military might, while Brazil languished with little more than plantation
agriculture for more than a century.
The next two generations of regional competition focused on Argentina
and Paraguay, which struggled for control of the Rio de la Plata
maritime system. That competition came to a head in the 1864-1870 War of
the Triple Alliance in which Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay eventually
won after a brutal struggle with Paraguay. Fully 90 percent of the male
Paraguayan population died in the conflict, nearly destroying Paraguay
as a country; its demography did not finally rebalance until the 1990s.
With Brazil*s wings clipped and its more serious regional rival all but
destroyed, Argentina fashioned Paraguay and Uruguay into economic
satellites, leveraging the region*s river systems to become a global
economic power. By 1929 it had the world*s fourth-highest per capita
GDP. Brazil, in contrast, remained impoverished and relatively isolated
for decades.
Nor was Brazil united. Between the economic pull of Argentina and its
rivers and the disconnected nature of the enclavic coast, regionalism
became a major feature of Brazilian politics. Contact between the
various pieces of Brazil was difficult, while contact with the outside
world was relatively easy, making integration of all kinds * political,
economic, and cultural * often elusive.
Regionalism remains a major issue in Brazilian politics, with strong
rivalries triggering divisions among states and between states and the
federal government. The preponderance of power at the beginning of the
20th century lay in the hands of the wealthier states, Minas Gerais and
Sao Paulo. For many years, control of the central government alternated
between the two states. This left Brazil*s remaining states isolated
politically, prodding them to seek economic opportunities globally while
defining their identities locally. For the better part of a century,
*Brazil* was less a national concept as much as it was a geographic
concept. Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul states, for example, in
many ways started acting like independent countries. This state of
affairs lasted until very recently.
Brazil*s Inflation Trap
Brazil*s biggest problem * which began with the colonial settlement
process and continues to the current day * is that it is simply not
capable of growth that is both sustained and stable. Economic growth
anywhere in the world is inflationary: Demand for arable land, labor,
transport, capital and resources pushes the prices of all of these
inputs up. Growth in most places can continue until those inflationary
pressures build and eventually overtake any potential benefit of that
growth. At that point, growth collapses due to higher costs and a
recession sets in. Brazil*s burden to bear is that land, labor,
transport infrastructure and capital exist in such extreme scarcity in
Brazil that any economic growth almost instantly turns inflationary.
Arable land, transport infrastructure and capital have already been
discussed, but labor requires a more thorough examination, particularly
given contemporary Brazil*s population of 194 million.
The labor issue is rooted in Brazil*s oligarchic economic system,
something that also has a geographic origin. Brazil suffers from low
capital generation and high capital costs * the opposite of most of the
world*s economic power centers. In those power centers, the relative
omnipresence of capital allows a democratization of economic power.
In the American experience, anyone could easily venture out of the
cities into the lands of the Greater Mississippi Basin and, within a
year or two, be exporting agricultural produce to both American and
European cities. In Brazil, by contrast, massive amounts of capital were
needed simply to build roads up the Grand Escarpment. The prospect of a
common citizen establishing an independent economic existence in that
sort of environment was unrealistic, as the only people who had the
capacity to *build* Brazil were those who entered the country with their
own pre-existing fortunes. So while the early American experience * and
the industrialization that followed * was defined by immigrants from
Europe*s rural poor seeking land, Brazil was started on its path by rich
Portuguese settlers who brought a portion of their fortunes with them.
The American culture of small businesses long predates independence,
whereas its Brazilian equivalent did not take root until the immigration
waves of the late 19th century. As could be expected in a location where
capital was rare but the needs for capital were high, these oligarchs
saw no reason to share what infrastructure they built with anyone * not
even with each other.
Complicating matters was that early Brazil did not have full access to
that France-sized piece of arable land * most of it lay in the interior
on the wrong side of the Grand Escarpment. The tropical climate
drastically limited agricultural options. Until the mid-20th century,
the only crops that could be grown en masse were plantation crops, first
and most famously sugar, but in time coffee, citrus, bananas and
tobacco. But unlike more traditional cereal crops that only require a
few weeks of attention per year, such tropical crops are far more labor
intensive in their planting, tending, harvesting and transport. Tobacco
had to be cut and dried; sugar had to be cut, cooked and refined.
Whereas a grain field can be quickly harvested and dumped into a truck,
harvesting and transporting bananas, for example, takes much longer.
These characteristics impacted Brazil in two critical ways.
First, the capital required for these plantations was so great that
smallholders of the American model were largely shut out. No
smallholders meant no small towns that could form kernels of education
and industrialization. Instead, plantations meant company towns where
economic oligarchies gave birth to political oligarchies. In time, the
political and economic power imbalance would provide the foundation for
the Brazilian military governments of the 20th century. Even in modern
times, Brazil*s geography continues to favor oligarchic plantation
farming to family farming. At present, 85 percent of farms in the United
States * a country with a reputation for factory farming * are 500 acres
or fewer, whereas 70 percent of Brazilian farms are 500 acres or more.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
Time has not moderated this trend, but rather deepened it. In the latter
half of the 20th century, Brazil launched a massive agricultural
diversification effort that included the clearing of vast swaths of land
in the interior, some of it in the cerrado and some as far inland as the
Bolivian border. Among other agricultural products, some of these new
lands were appropriate for corn and soybeans, crops normally quite
amenable to farmers of a more modest capital base. But the cerrado
requires massive inputs before agriculture can be attempted, and the
interior lands are often in excess of 1,000 kilometers from Brazil*s
perennially overworked ports. The twin development and infrastructure
costs wound up reinforcing the oligarchic nature of the Brazilian
agricultural system to the point that the average *new* Brazilian farm
is six times the size of the farms of *old* Brazil.
Second, plantation agriculture calls for unskilled labor, a pattern that
continues into the modern day. Unlike the more advanced New World
colonies * which enjoyed access to easier transport and thus more
capital, yielding the kernels of urbanization, an educational system and
labor differentiation * Brazil relied on slave labor. It was the last
country in the Western Hemisphere to outlaw slavery, a step it took in
1888.
A lack of skilled labor means, among other things, a smaller middle
class and lower internal consumption than other states at a similar
level of development. Consequently, Brazil has a small number of landed
elite and a large majority of poor. As of 2011, fully one in four
Brazilians eke out a living in Brazil*s infamous slums, the favelas.
According to the Gini coefficient, a sociological measure of income
inequality, Brazil has been the most unequal of the world*s major states
for decades.
Taken together, Brazil faces inflationary barriers at every stage of the
growth cycle. Starting a business requires capital, which is in short
supply and held by a privileged class. Shipping goods requires scarce
infrastructure, which is insufficient to needs, expensive and often
owned by a privileged class. Any increase in demand for either of these
inputs puts upward pressure on the associated costs. Expanding a
business requires skilled labor, but there is not a deep skilled labor
pool, so any hiring quickly results in wage spirals. And holding
everything back is the still-disconnected nature of the Brazilian
cities, so there are few economies of scale. More than anywhere else in
the world, growth triggers inflation * which kills growth.
Consequently, Brazil has been characterized by below-average growth and
above-average inflation for centuries and thus has traditionally been
underindustrialized compared to most other developing states. Even
before the oligarchs* interests are factored in, any infrastructure
projects that make sense will be linked to projects with good foreign
cash-generating potential, which quickly narrows the list of likely
projects to agriculture and mining (all commodities are U.S.-dollar
denominated).
As such, Brazil has had little choice but to focus on the production or
extraction of primary commodities such as sugar and iron ore. Such
capital-intensive industries not only reinforce the oligarchic system
but also skew the economy*s output. As of 2010, fully 70 percent of
Brazil*s exports are dollar-denominated, with 45 percent of exports by
value consisting of raw commodities. This may help Brazil*s
(dollar-denominated) bottom line, but it does nothing to address its
chronic infrastructure, labor, inequality or inflationary restraints.
It is thus unsurprising that Brazil has not yet emerged as a major
global power. It cannot economically expand without killing itself with
inflation. Its skilled labor pool and capital markets are woefully
insufficient for its needs, and the oligarchs have a vested interest in
keeping things that way. Even efforts to expand out of the country*s
various traps have in many ways only entrenched the system. Moreover,
what growth Brazil has enjoyed in recent years has been because of the
combination of a broad rise in commodity prices and heavy foreign
investment into Brazilian infrastructure to get at those commodities,
not because of anything Brazil has done.
This hardly means that Brazil is either a failed state or that its past
is condemned to be its future. What this does mean is that if Brazil is
to rise as a major power something has to change. And two things have
changed, in fact: Argentina, and the way Brazilians view their country.
Modern Argentina*s Decline
Argentina has everything necessary to become a major global power. Its
lands are flat and temperate, its rivers are navigable and
interconnected, and it enjoys the buffer of distance from major
competitors and ample resources to fuel a rise to greatness. Indeed,
throughout its first century of independence, Argentina moved from
victory to victory * first over Brazil, then Paraguay, and then into the
ranks of the world*s richest states. Standing in Argentina*s shadow, it
is no surprise that Brazilians developed the tendency to be humble and
passive, unwilling to challenge their rich and dynamic southern
neighbor.
In the aftermath of the War of the Triple Alliance, Argentina enjoyed a
historic boom. European immigrants arrived en masse, and the
opportunities of the Rio de la Plata allowed for the creation and
metabolization of massive amounts of capital. Alone among the Latin
American states, Argentina generated a substantial middle class. But
Argentina had two weaknesses, and from roughly 1930 on, Argentina*s
trajectory has been downward.
First, unlike in Anglo America, land in Argentina was not widely
distributed to individual landholders. Like elsewhere in Latin America,
Argentina began with an oligarchic landholder system that left most of
the population economically dependent on a small, wealthy elite. A
successful backlash to this autocratic structure came in the form of
labor unrest that propelled the populist Peron regime to power.
The legacy of Peronism is the enhancement of autocratic power by
political mobilization of the lower and middle classes. This power has
remained consolidated under the control of a strongman * or in the case
of the contemporary government, a strongwoman * whose influence over the
institutions of the state is near total. Other institutions are much
weaker than the presidency, and as a result, policymaking in Argentina
is highly dependent on the individual in power at any given time.
Populist demands have overpowered more conventional policies for decades
on end, resulting in Argentina*s slow and irregular decline for nearly a
century.
Second, the vast distance of Argentina from the rest of the world
greatly shaped Argentine perceptions. Tucked away at the bottom of the
Atlantic, Argentina is one of the world*s most sequestered states. Once
Brazil and Paraguay had been contained as local threats, the next
closest threat to Argentina was the United Kingdom, some 12,000
kilometers away. As in the United States, such large distances allowed a
large degree of cultural insulation and national savings. (There was no
need to maintain a large standing military.)
But there is a critical difference between the two experiences. The
Americans were some 7,000 kilometers closer to potential rivals and thus
on occasion were reminded that they are not, in fact, alone. Events such
as the 1814 burning of Washington, the European willingness to ignore
the Union blockade during the Civil War, the 1941 bombing of Pearl
Harbor and, most recently, 9/11 unsurprisingly have had a major impact
on the American psyche. Each shocked the Americans out of complacency
and spurred them to overreact to the sudden *surprise* that the rest of
the world exists. In those subsequent spasms of activity, the Americans
remake themselves. This process entails a great deal of disruption in
the United States and abroad, but it keeps the Americans adaptable.
Argentina*s greater distance from world affairs means that they have
suffered no such revivals following intrusions into their geographic
utopia. The War of the Triple Alliance is now 140 years past. The war
over the Falklands Islands, known to Argentines as the Malvinas, was the
one notable instance in which Argentina sought interaction with the
outside world. Buenos Aires initiated conflict with a far superior
military power * the United Kingdom * and the resulting political and
military defeat crushed the standing of the Argentine military, heavily
contributing to the decline and fall of the military government.
Although the Falklands War had a huge political impact, it did not pose
the kind of challenge to Argentine core elements of prosperity that
would require a concerted effort at reform and self-renewal. As a
result, Argentina has neglected to address national problems that have
crept up on it over the decades.
Recent developments underline this tendency. An economic crisis in
2001-2002 placed a new populist government in power that defaulted on
the country*s debt, which freed Buenos Aires of the need to make
interest payments. Rather than seize the opportunity to rebalance the
Argentine economic and political system onto a sounder footing that
leveraged the country*s geographic blessings, the state instead spent
the savings on mass subsidies to bolster its populist credentials. High
growth resulted, but the policies were only paid for by hollowing out
the country*s capital stock and distorting the economy to the point
where fundamental industries * from cattle farming to wheat
growing to energy production * have now begun to fail. High taxes
combined with high consumption encouraged by large subsidies and price
controls have crippled business owners and agriculturalists alike. The
subsidies have proven particularly problematic, as they have locked the
government into ever-increasing expenditures expressly linked to the
populist patronage the people demand as their right. Consequently,
Buenos Aires only wields limited influence in South America and little
to none beyond the continent.
With all that said, Argentina is still the power in South America with
the clearest, most likely growth path. It still holds the Rio de la
Plata*s river network and it still holds the Pampas, the best farmland
in the Southern Hemisphere. What it cannot seem to figure out is how to
make use of its favorable position. So long as that remains the case *
so long as the natural dominant power of the Southern Cone remains in
decline * other powers have at least a chance to emerge. Which brings us
back to Brazil.
Modern Brazil*s Success
Brazil*s challenges are legion, but at core they are as simple as these
two issues: Brazil*s geography works against it, and its economy is
trapped by inflation. The Brazilians have spent decades struggling
against these two facts, and in the past generation they have finally
achieved significant progress.
Brazil*s Struggle With Geography
As discussed, Brazil*s core coastal territories present the country with
a variety of difficulties that no amount of local development can
overcome. Yet Brazil does sport a broad swath of arable land in its
interior which is flatter, more temperate and largely unified
topographically * the trick is uniting the coastal territories on the
east side of the Grand Escarpment with the interior in a way that does
not undermine the authority of the state. From the 1870s until the 1980s
Brazilian development strategy therefore was relatively straightforward:
expand the country*s infrastructure, kilometer by painstaking kilometer,
into those interior arable zones. The sheer size of the territories that
could be put under plow partially overcame the inflationary and
transport bottlenecks that limited Brazil*s core coastal regions.
While early expansion certainly weakened central authority by
encouraging economic links to Argentina, as that expansion built upon
itself and developed economies of scale, interior Brazil became a
formidable economic engine in and of itself. And while Brazil*s gaze
still lingered on the attractiveness of the Rio de la Plata*s transport
network, Brazil was sizable enough to have independent economic heft.
Under those circumstances, association with coastal Brazil was an
economic complication rather than an economic catastrophe.
By the 1970s several interlocking factors started solidifying the many
interior success stories:
* Argentina*s deepening malaise lessened the attractiveness of the Rio
de la Plata*s rivers.
* Brazil finally cleared enough interior lands so that more easily
shippable conventional cereals were starting to be produced in large
quantities, producing a more positive value-bulk ratio in the
transport of Brazilian agricultural produce that somewhat eased its
transport problem.
* Brazil*s interior expansion took it right up to the borders of
Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, and after some tentative moments,
Brazilian infrastructure and capital started moving across the
borders and integrating the agricultural lands of the border states
into the broader Brazilian economy. Argentina did little to resist.
Bit by bit Argentina lost influence in the three states and by 2011
all three have become de facto Brazilian economic satellites.
* Foreign investors saw sufficient potential in the Brazilian interior
that they were willing to invest increasing sums of their own
capital in underwriting both the country*s interior development
projects and its efforts to assimilate the three border states.
Surprisingly, the clear-cutting of the interior provided the basis of
Brazilian political liberalization. One of the many downsides of an
oligarchic economic system is that politics tend to become as
concentrated as wealth. Yet in clearing the land Brazil created
artificial trade ways * roads * that allowed some Brazilians to strike
out on their own (though they were not as efficient as rivers).
Currently there are some 2.6 million landholders with farms of between 5
and 100 acres (anything less is a subsistence farm, while anything more
verges into the category of high-capital factory farms). That is 2.6
million families who have a somewhat independent economic * and
political * existence. Elsewhere in the world, that is known as a middle
class. The environmental price was steep, but without this very new
class of landholder, Brazilian democracy would be on fairly shaky
ground.
The interior expansion effort solved none of the coastal bottleneck
issues, but the constellation of forces certainly conspired to ease
Brazil*s path. But perhaps the most important aspect of this interior
push was that Brazil ceased to be simply a geographic concept. The
rising importance of the interior * best symbolized by the relocation of
the political capital to the interior city of Brasilia in 1960 * diluted
the regional leanings of the coastal cities. The lands of the interior
saw themselves first and foremost as Brazilian, and as that identity
slowly gained credence, the government finally achieved sufficient
gravitas and respect to begin addressing the country*s other major
challenge.
Inflation
No economic strategy can allow Brazil to achieve the magic mix of
locally determined, strong growth with low inflation. At most, Brazil
can have two of the three. For most of the 20th century, Brazilian
governments tended to favor growth as a means of containing social
unrest and mustering resources for the government, even at the cost of
inflation. But since inflation tends disproportionately to harm the
poor, the already-wide income gap between the oligarchs and the rest of
the population only widened. Since 2006, strong global commodity prices
have allowed the Brazilian economy to grow fairly rapidly, but those
commodity prices are based on factors wholly beyond Brazil*s control. As
with every other commodity cycle, this one, too, will come to an end,
triggering all the economic dislocation with which Brazilians are all
too familiar.
Unless of course, the government changes the game * which it has done.
The macroeconomic strategy of the current regime, along with that of a
string of governments going back to the early 1990s, is known
colloquially as the *real plan* (after Brazil*s currency, the real). In
essence, the strategy turned Brazil*s traditional strategy of growth at
any cost on its head, seeking instead low inflation at any cost.
Subsidies were eliminated wholesale across the economy, working from the
understanding that consumption triggered inflation. Credit * whether
government or private, domestic or foreign * was greatly restricted,
working from the assumption that the Brazilian system could not handle
the subsequent growth without stoking inflation. Government spending was
greatly reduced and deficit spending largely phased out on the
understanding that all forms of stimulus should be minimized to avoid
inflation.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
In practice, this led to a series of policies that most economists
interpreted as rather orthodox, consisting of extremely low government
debt; extremely restrained government activity; and extremely well
capitalized, heavily regulated and conservative banks. These strict
inflation control policies have achieved a high degree of economic
stability. Inflation plunged from more than 2,000 percent a year to the
single digits. But those gains came at a cost: Between 1980 and 2005,
Brazil has shifted from one of the world*s fastest growing economies
with one of the highest inflation rates to one of the lowest inflation
economies with one of the lowest (if somewhat irregular) growth rates.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
But the real plan is not an orthodox economic policy. Economic orthodoxy
stems from the belief that constrained credit, limited government and
low inflation are policy tools designed to maximize growth. Orthodox
policies are means to an end. The real plan approaches the question from
the other side, in which strong growth is the enemy because it causes
runaway inflation that destroys economic, political and social
stability. As such, constrained credit, limited government and low
inflation are the goals of the real plan, not the means. The distinction
is sufficiently critical to bear repeating: Growth is the enemy of the
real plan, not its goal.
What results is not so much a difference between perception and reality
but between what the Brazilian government intended and what the
international markets perceive those intentions to be. Investors across
the world believe the real plan*s ends are in actuality its means * and
they interpret those ends as being in perfect sync with their interests.
Thus, foreign investors have been voting for Brazil and the real plan
with their money. Inward investment to Brazil is at historical highs,
with the Brazilian Central Bank projecting the country*s 2011 foreign
direct investment take at a stunning $60 billion.
All this money is working against the real plan*s goals: introducing
credit where the government seeks to constrain credit, overfunding banks
that the government wants to keep tightly regulated, encouraging
spending that the government deems dangerous. Brazilians may be feeling
richer because of the cheap, imported credit, but for government
planners the environment is becoming ever more dangerous, threatening
the hard-won stability that the real plan seeks to sustain. At the time
of this writing, annualized inflation has edged up to 6 percent, right
at the government*s redline.
The true success of the real plan lies in achieving economic stability
and, most of all, control. Brazil*s geographic and social challenges are
daunting, and no government could hope to address them competently if it
could not first master local macroeconomic forces. In this, the real
plan has performed to design. While hardly dead, inflation is restrained
* and that has given the government space to start addressing the myriad
other issues the country faces.
As with the interior expansion plan, the success of the real plan has
changed how Brazilians feel about their country. When inflation burned
through poor citizens* savings, when it destroyed livelihoods and
condemned tens of millions to lives of poverty, faith in central
institutions was lacking. The real plan may not promise great growth or
even great wealth, but it has delivered price stability * and with price
stability people can lay at least a limited groundwork for their own
futures. Savings holds value from year to year. Purchasing power is
constant. These are basic economic factors that most of the developed
world takes for granted but which are relatively new to the current
generation of Brazilians * and Brazilians rightly credit their central
government with achieving them.
Just as the interior expansion effort provided all of the Brazilian
states with a vested political interest in the Brazil project, the real
plan has provided all of the Brazilian states with a vested economic
interest in the central government. It is not so much that the real plan
removed the structural and geographic causes of Brazil*s inflation
problem * which is impossible to do * but it proved to Brazilians that
their country could be economically stable and that their government
could act in the interests of Brazil in its totality rather than simply
for whichever state happened to hold the presidency at the time.
Brazil*s Geopolitical Imperatives
Geopolitical imperatives are broad, strategic goals a country must
pursue if it is to achieve security and success. These are
non-ideological paths determined by the geography of a given country and
by the geography of its neighbors. Geopolitical imperatives typically
nest: The second imperative is dependent upon the first imperative, the
third upon the second, and so on. This is not the case for Brazil,
however.
Since Brazil occupies such a difficult geography, it has traditionally
been a weak state that has lacked the resources and institutional
capacity to greatly impact the world around it. Its first three
imperatives reflect this. As such, the order in which those imperatives
might be attained is largely determined by the constellation of forces
in Brazil*s near abroad * factors for the most part beyond the
Brazilians* ability to manipulate * rather than any decision-making
process in Brasilia. Brazil can only push to achieve these imperatives
as circumstances beyond its control allow.
Imperative One: Protect the Coast
The Brazilian southern coast contains the country*s core territories.
However, the ruggedness of that coast and the disconnected enclave
nature of the core territories mean that infrastructure linking the
coastal territories will not ensure mutual defense. The only way Brazil
can protect its core itself is to cultivate a naval force of sufficient
strength to deter would-be predatory powers. Without such a navy, Brazil
would shatter into a series of (most likely mutually hostile)
city-states. And without a navy any Brazilian exports are utterly at the
mercy of more maritime-oriented entities.
But Brazil is capital poor and cannot afford such a navy. Historically,
this has led Brasilia to seek alliances with whatever the dominant
Atlantic power has happened to be in order to hold the traditionally
more powerful Argentina in check. In the first half of the 19th century,
the Brazilians sought out a favorable relationship with the British. But
the deeper expression of this imperative came from Brazil*s enthusiastic
embracing of the United States* Monroe Doctrine. Nearly alone among
Western Hemispheric powers, Brazil expressed enthusiasm for the American
neo-colonial policy of barring European states from the Western
Hemisphere, largely because it could not stand up to those powers
without assistance.
Even today, Brazil*s navy is unable to patrol the Brazilian
coastline reliably beyond the Brazilian core territories. Thus, Brazil
maintains close * if not exactly friendly * relations with the United
States both to ensure that America never views Brazil as a state of
concern and as a hedge against other potential threats.
Imperative Two: Selectively Expand into the Interior
Developing (or outsourcing) a navy is one means of protecting Brazil*s
core. Another is to expand that core into new areas not so exposed to a
hostile navy. In this, Brazil faces several challenges. The coastal
enclaves are not large enough to generate their own economies of scale,
so reaching inland requires the expenditure of massive resources Brazil
simply does not have. As such, Brazil*s inland expansion has been
halting, slow and piecemeal and driven by an often badly coordinated mix
of government, oligarchic and foreign interests. The obvious target for
this expansion is into the subtropical and temperate regions of the
country*s south, not the tropical zone of the north.
However, the farther these new territories are from the coast, the more
integrated they will naturally become into the capital-rich lands of the
Rio de la Plata region to the south. Ironically, in achieving strategic
depth and a better economic position, Brazil risks its territory
becoming more fully integrated into its neighbors, as opposed to the
Brazilian core.
In this challenge, however, also lies an opportunity. When the economies
and populations of Brazil*s interior regions are small, they naturally
gravitate towards Argentina*s sphere of influence. But as they grow they
eventually reach a critical mass in terms of influence, which brings us
to the third imperative.
Imperative Three: Expand into the Rio de la Plata Region
The solution lies in increasing Brazilian influence to the south so that
those territories ultimately answer to Brazilian economic and political
decision-making. Like the first two imperatives, this requires decades
of slow efforts to make any progress. It has only been in the past
generation that Brazil has created enough capital to encroach into the
Argentina-Brazilian buffer states of Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Brazil has invested heavily into Bolivian energy and agriculture. Most
Bolivian foodstuffs are now sold to or through Brazil to the outside
world. Natural gas * responsible for by far the largest component of
Bolivian state income * is under the direct management of Brazilian
state-owned energy company Petroleos Brasileiros (Petrobras). In
Paraguay, Brazilians have migrated in significant numbers and are the
dominant investors in the economy * particularly in electricity, as the
two are partners in the Itaipu Dam. Brazilian (and Argentine) cash fuels
Uruguay*s vibrant financial sector, and Brazilian-born Uruguayan
citizens now own a majority of Uruguay*s farmland.
The next logical question * something the normally nonconfrontational
Brazilians are currently struggling with * is what to do once economic
control has been seized but political control is not yet in place. Here
the Brazilians come up against an odd cultural barrier: Nonconfrontation
is hardwired into the Brazilian psyche. Even today, with the Brazilian
economy growing and Argentina continuing to struggle, there exists a
belief in government circles that Brazil needs to concentrate on
striking an equilibrium with Argentina, with perhaps the inclusion of
even Chile in a trilateral balance of power in the region (the Chileans
for their part want little to do with the Southern Cone and even less to
do with the Argentine-Brazilian balance of power).
For all practical purposes, Brazil has already secured dominance in the
three buffer states * Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay are all but economic
satellites of Brazil * but in light of Brazil*s historically passive
foreign policy these states rarely shirk from demanding better terms out
of Brasilia. Uruguay charges steep fees on Brazilian cargo. Paraguay
recently was able to triple the cost of electricity produced by the
Itaipu Dam, Brazil*s single-largest source of electricity, and routinely
receives financial aid from Brazil and Mercosur. The Bolivian government
regularly confronts Medialuna landowners who are for all intents and
purposes are fully integrated into the Brazilian economy, and it has not
been shy about its attempts to nationalize energy assets owned by
Brazilian interests. If Brazil is going to make its gains stick, at some
point it will need to devise a strategy for formalizing its control of
the buffer states. That means, among other things, learning to be less
accommodating.
There also looms a much more significant * potentially bruising *
competition. Brazil cannot be truly secure until at the very least it
controls the northern shore of the Rio de la Plata. That requires
significant penetration into Paraguay and de facto control of Uruguay
and of select pieces of northern Argentina. Were that to happen,
Brazil*s interior would have direct access to one of the world*s most
capital-rich regions. The marriage of such capital generation capacity
to Brazil*s pre-existing bulk will instantly transform Brazil into a
power with global potential.
But not before. Without these territories, the Southern Cone balance of
power remains in place no matter how weak Argentina becomes. So long as
Argentina can exercise functional independence, it persists as a
possible direct threat to Brazil, constrains Brazil*s ability to
generate its own capital and exists as a potential ally of extraregional
powers that might seek to limit Brazil*s rise.
The Geopolitics of Brazil: An Emergent Power's Struggle with Geography
(click here to enlarge image)
Imperative Four: Challenge the Dominant Atlantic Power
Should Brazil manage to consolidate control over the Rio de la Plata
basin the game changes greatly. At this point Brazil is no longer a
vulnerable, enclave-based state facing extreme challenges to its
development. Instead, Brazil would control the majority of the continent
and command broad swaths of easily developed arable land. Instead of
cowering in fear of regional naval powers, it would be the dominant
regional naval power. With that transformation, Brazil would not see
extraregional navies as friends protecting it from Argentina but as
enemies seeking to constrain its rise.
Obviously, this imperative will be well beyond Brazil*s reach for many
decades. Not only is Brazil*s navy far smaller than that of states with
one-third its population, it is nowhere close to commanding the Rio de
la Plata region. Until that happens, Brazil has no choice but to align
with whatever the Atlantic*s dominant power happens to be. To do
otherwise would risk the country*s exports and its overall economic and
political coherence.
Contemporary Challenges: Escaping the Trap
Contemporary Brazil faces three interlocking problems that pose severe
structural challenges to all of the economic stability it improbably has
attained: an overvalued currency, Mercosur and China.
As to currency, investor enthusiasm for Brazil*s recent stability and
theoretical growth prospects has flooded the country with external
funding. In addition to complicating always-critical inflation concerns,
all that capital is having a demonstrable impact on the Brazilian
currency, pushing the real up by more than 50 percent in just the past
two years, and doubling it since 2003.
For Brazil*s commodity exports * all of which are dollar-denominated *
this has no demonstrable impact, but for the country*s industrial
exports this currency appreciation is disastrous. Because Brazil*s
infrastructure is inadequate and the country is capital poor, Brazil
produces very little that is high value-added; Such industries are the
providence of capital-rich, low-transport-cost economies such as Germany
and Japan. Instead, Brazil*s predominantly low- and medium-value-added
industries compete heavily on price. A 50 percent increase in the
currency largely guts any price competitiveness enjoyed by Brazil*s
sheltered industries. The only Brazilian firms benefiting from the mix
of impacts are those few high-skill firms that happen to price their
products in U.S. dollars, most notably oil firm Petrobras and aerospace
firm Embraer * which, while world class by any definition, are not
representative of the broader Brazilian economic structure.
Second, Brazil has limited itself with the highly distorting and
damaging trade network known as Mercosur. Recall that an oligarchy has
long dominated the Brazilian economy, controlling most of the country*s
scarce capital and enjoying a privileged economic and political
position. Unlike most trade agreements * which are negotiated by
governments on behalf of the corporate world * Brazil*s oligarchic
background meant these oligarchs negotiated Mercosur on behalf of the
Brazilian government.
This abnormal process radically changed the end result. A normal trade
deal removes barriers to trade and exposes companies in all the affected
countries to competition from each other. In Mercosur*s case, the
various Brazilian industrialists were able to block off entire swaths of
the economy for themselves, largely eliminating foreign competition. As
such, Brazil*s industrial sector is shielded from competition with
outside forces * and even from most other forces within Mercosur. Add in
a 50 percent currency appreciation and Brazil*s industrial base is now
one of the world*s least competitive.
Third, Brazil has allowed competition from the one power most capable of
destroying that sheltered industrial base: China. Throughout the past
decade, Brazilian governments have sought Chinese investment largely to
help alleviate some of the country*s transport bottlenecks. The Chinese,
hungry for Brazilian resources, have happily complied. But that
infrastructure development has come at the cost of granting Chinese
firms Brazilian market access, and that access * and even the investment
* is damaging the Brazilian system.
At its core it is a difference in development models. The Chinese system
is based on ultraloose capital access aimed at maximizing employment and
throughput, regardless of the impact on profitability and inflation *
about as far as possible from the real plan. This has had a number of
negative side effects on the Chinese system, but as regards Brazil, it
has resulted in a flood of subsidized Chinese imports.
The China trap is catching Brazil in three ways. The first is direct
competition for market share in Brazil. The Chinese yuan is de facto
pegged to the dollar, so Brazilian goods are now even less competitive
versus Chinese goods on the domestic market (even before one takes into
account that Chinese goods are for all intents and purposes subsidized).
Second, China is engaging in indirect competition for market share by
shipping goods into Brazil via other Mercosur member states * a fact
that has prompted Brazil to raise non-tariff barriers that penalize
Mercosur partners in an effort to stem Chinese competition. Third, the
Chinese are among those international investors whose cash is pushing
the value of the real ever upward. With every dollar the Chinese invest
into Brazilian commodity production, the real goes just a bit higher and
Chinese goods edge out their Brazilian counterparts just a bit more.
Resisting these trends will require some clever and quick policymaking
along with a remarkable amount of political bravery. For example,
scrapping Mercosur and adopting free market policies would throw the
Brazilian market open to global competition. That would decimate
Brazil*s inefficient industrial base in the short run with the expected
knock-on impact on employment, making it a policy the oligarchic and
powerful labor unions alike would oppose. But it is difficult to imagine
Brazilian industry progressing past its current stunted level if it is
not forced to play on a larger field, and weakening the hold of the
oligarchs is now at least a century overdue. Two more years of a rising
currency and an enervating Chinese relationship will surely destroy much
of the progress the Brazilians have painstakingly made in recent
decades.
The current president, Dilma Rousseff, is a non-charismatic, no-nonsense
technocrat well known for demanding respect and results, a good person
to have in office given the nature of Brazil*s [IMG] contemporary
challenges. Success in any free market-oriented reforms would require
brutal and rapid changes in Brazil*s standard operating procedures *
changes that would undoubtedly come with serious political risks. The
alternative is to continue to pursue protectionist, defensive policies
while allowing international forces to shape Brazil rather than Brazil
developing the means to shape international forces. This could well be
the path Brazil follows. After all, the damage being inflicted by
Mercosur and the China relationship are direct outcomes of policies
Brazil chose to follow, rather than anything produced by Brazil*s
geography.
We do not mean to belittle Brazilians* achievements to date. Taming
their lands, taming inflation and crafting a series of economic sectors
fully deserving of international acclaim are no small feats. But
insufficient infrastructure, an ossified oligarchy, a shallow skilled
labor pool and the looming question of Argentina continue to define the
Brazilian position. The maintenance of that position remains largely
beyond the control of the Brazilian government. The economy remains
hooked on commodities whose prices are set far beyond the continent.
Their ability to supply those commodities is largely dependent upon
infrastructure in turn dependent upon foreign financing. Even Brazilian
dominance of their southern tier is as much a result of what Argentina
has done wrong as opposed to what Brazil has done right.
For Brazil to emerge as a significant extraregional power, Brazilians
must first address a lengthy list of internal and regional issues. These
include * but are hardly limited to * moving beyond their oligarchic
economic system, ensuring that Argentina will never again threaten it
and formalizing their dominant position in the border states of Bolivia,
Paraguay, and Uruguay. These cannot be accomplished easily, but doing so
is the price Brazilians must pay if they are to be the masters of their
own destiny rather than simply accepting an environment crafted by
others.
Give us your thoughts Read comments on
on this report other reports
For Publication Reader Comments
Not For Publication
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us
(c) Copyright 2011 Stratfor. All rights reserved.