A new Bolsonaro could pull Brazil away from Europe — and toward Trump

Por Camille Gijs — Sustainability – POLITICO

BRUSSELS — The European Union took advantage of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s departure to rebuild ties with Brazil and finally seal an elusive trade agreement with the South American Mercosur bloc.

His eldest son, Flávio, could now put that reconciliation at risk.

Brazil votes in the first round of its presidential election on Sunday, with 80-year-old incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva facing a strong challenge from the younger Bolsonaro. Lula leads 39% to 34%, according to the latest Quaest poll, but the two are neck and neck in a potential Oct. 25 run-off.

The election comes as Brussels seeks to deepen ties with friendly countries in response to an onslaught of Chinese exports and U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionism. Brazil — a nation of 213 million people, rich in critical minerals and Mercosur’s largest economy — is key to that effort.

The concern in Brussels is that a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would make the Mercosur trade agreement more politically toxic in Europe while drawing Brasília closer to Washington — where Trump has cast himself as a staunch ally of the Bolsonaro family.

“There is a clear sense that if Bolsonaro wins, Brazil will become closer to the United States,” said Welber Barral, Brazil’s foreign trade secretary during Lula’s second term from 2007 to 2011.

Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison last year after Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted him of leading a coup attempt to overturn his 2022 election defeat. The case has been a source of tension between the U.S. and Brazil, with Trump citing the “politically motivated persecution” of Bolsonaro Sr. when he imposed a 40% duty on Brazilian goods.

For the EU, the prospect of a sequel is also reviving uncomfortable memories of past battles over Amazon deforestation and EU climate policy, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron’s difficult relationship with Jair Bolsonaro.

“We can expect a similar agenda both nationally and internationally from Flávio Bolsonaro,” said Bruno Capuzzi, who worked in Brussels at Brazil’s trade promotion agency, ApexBrasil, and is now at Insper Agro Global, a São Paulo-based research center.

After more than 25 years of talks, the trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur bloc provisionally took effect in May.

But full approval is on hold after European lawmakers voted to refer the deal to the EU’s top court for an opinion on whether it complies with the EU treaties. That is not expected to come before next summer.

“We need Lula to be re-elected in order to have the Mercosur agreement ratified next year,” said John Clarke, a former European Commission trade negotiator and top agriculture official.

“If Bolsonaro gets elected, he will reverse all of the environmental protection. He will allow logging and mining and deforestation to expand. He will allow people to invade territories held by indigenous communities, which Lula has reversed,” Clarke added.

Not helping

Still, a Lula victory would hardly guarantee smooth sailing with Brussels, despite the political capital he invested in getting the EU-Mercosur deal over the line during his current, third term.

“The Commission should have taken advantage of Lula’s presidency to propose to Mercosur a sustainable, democratic partnership on AI, food security, the energy transition and fair trade,” said Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont, her group’s lead on the Mercosur deal. “These are all solutions that the U.S. will not offer to Brazil and the Mercosur countries.”

Several EU heavyweights — including France, Italy and Poland — hold elections next year, and farm politics could make it difficult to consolidate and deepen the relationship.

Opponents in those countries say the deal exposes European farmers and consumers to products made under standards more lax than those that apply in the EU.

Within months of the deal taking effect, Lula’s government said it was taken by surprise by new EU restrictions on Brazilian exports, including antimicrobial requirements for animal products, as well as lower quotas on steel imports and higher tariffs on shipments exceeding them.

A meeting between Lula and top EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa on the sidelines of the G7 summit in June failed to calm matters.

Brussels went ahead with the steel curbs within weeks, prompting Brazil to push back both publicly and privately. Brasília also sent a letter to the European Commission saying it wanted to keep negotiating the quotas, said one official familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Then, on Sept. 3, Brazil was kept off the EU list of countries meeting its new antimicrobial requirements for animal products — in contrast to its fellow Mercosur members Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Farm trouble

The agricultural dispute is politically sensitive for Lula.

“The most important caucus in the Brazilian Congress is the agricultural caucus. Winning some hearts in this group is extremely relevant for the government,” said Barral, the former trade secretary.

Lula, he added, “is under criticism from the exporters because of the EU restrictions … These guys are going to use any restriction from the EU to pressure the government.”

Earlier this month, Brazil’s Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock, which represents the country’s powerful agribusiness producers, called on the foreign ministry to use a rebalancing clause in the EU-Mercosur trade deal that allows for compensation if one side finds that new policy measures nullify or impair its benefits.

But in a step likely to be welcomed by Brasília, the European Commission on Monday published a positive assessment of Brazil’s compliance with the EU’s antimicrobial rules for poultry and honey. EU countries are expected to vote to implement the decision in November.

Brazilian beef producers face a longer wait, however, with a senior Commission official telling EU lawmakers this week that Brazilian beef would be barred from the EU for at least two more years.

More trade friction looms, as Brussels aims to ban imports containing pesticide residues and phase out soy-based biofuels over deforestation concerns. Brazil is the world’s largest soy producer.

Brussels or Washington?

Although Flávio Bolsonaro has portrayed himself as more moderate than his father, his presidency could mark a sharp shift in Brazil’s foreign policy: The 45-year-old senator from the right-wing Liberal Party has called for more flexibility within Mercosur and the closest possible alliance with the United States.

“Brazil and America were made for each other,” he said at the right-wing CPAC conference earlier this year.

“America needs secure supply chains for critical materials, a reliable partner in the hemisphere, and a massive market for American goods and services. And Brazil needs three things: help fighting international drug cartels, investments and technology. There is no nation in the world that can help us with this better than the United States,” he added.

Asked whether a Bolsonaro victory would make the deal harder to ratify next year, Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, said: “In principle, no, but it would really depend on the concrete policy.”

“His father was really destroying some principles and not accepting core rules of a trading agreement,” he added.

Ketrin Jochecová, Eva Hartog and Agnes Rønberg contributed to this report. 

Fonte: Sustainability – POLITICO