Donald trump is horrible. However, he has one trait that could go Brazil good.
I mean threats to the elected President in address automakers General Motors, Ford and Toyota in an attempt to force them to move factories from Mexico back to the US.
It is true that many of trump’s tweets is pure bravado, as demonstrated by an extensive report by the Washington Post, which are the earliest threats voiced during the election campaign.
Anyway, even this edition, acting fierce critic of the candidate, acknowledges that trump had retained 700 jobs that Ford would transfer in Mexico — accounting, which is limited only tweets of this week.
It is in General a trifle for a country that only in December, when President Barack Obama added 156 thousand jobs to the existing ones.
However, if the potential of the Brazilian Donald trump acted in a similar manner — not only via Twitter — it could help save a greater number of jobs.
In the end, as the details reported by the newspaper the paraná, Gazeta do Povo, our poor neighbor Paraguay drew 124 industrial enterprises since, in 1997, issued the so-called law “lei da maquila” (the name itself points to the replica of the Mexican system on the border with the USA).
Most of these companies (78) settled there in 2014. It is no coincidence that this year the Brazilian crisis was painted in tragic colors.
What attracts them? Just a one per cent tax for those who export 100% of production.
For comparison with those 700 jobs that Ford decided not to give Mexico 124 enterprises transferred to Paraguay, occupied 11 thousand 300 workers, most of them (6 thousand 700) got the job in 2014.
Itself is inevitable and raises a simple question: whether or not to introduce protectionism, so actively promoted by Donald trump?
I admit, there was a time when I was pretty this kind of policy, but since the world and production methods changed so radically and rapidly that it now appears that it no longer made sense.
In the end, writes the Economist this week: “a Smartphone can be designed and designed in California but assembled in China using components made or designed in half a dozen countries in Asia and Europe, and the main material will be African metals.”
And people here from whom to protect? In relation to the specific case of trump against Mexico magazine notes that every dollar of Mexican exports includes about 40 cents embedded made in the USA.
There is a second question: is there a likelihood that the Brazilian government — the present or the future, anyway — I will choose protectionist measures, which go beyond the so-called “mainstream”?
The advantage of the trump is that he has no ideology, and his country has unprecedented power. And because he can afford such antics without much risk. In Brazil, we have in sight while no one politician (or at least “outsider”), is able to avoid the main current.
There is always a risk to turn into Venezuela, the weakest neighbour in the region. However, the scale of the Brazilian crisis demands bold and innovative solutions.
