The surprising decision to give up on the International Monetary Fund it is an important turning point in Brazil’s financial relations with the world. In practice, it meant a kind of rupture and, naturally, it should generate even more distrust of the domestic market, complicating the chances of possible future borrowing. It was not, as it appeared, a quick-fix measure, on impulse. There was, of course, the finger, always inappropriate, of the agent Jair Bolsonaro. He was already accumulating a growing dissatisfaction with what he considered undue interference by the Fund in Brazilian statistics. He complained that the organization always pulled down the numbers and, as even the stones of the Plateau already know, Bolsonaro cannot tolerate being frustrated in his bets, no matter how delusional they may be. And the predictable happened: the minister Paulo Guedes, in the role of errand boy, tried to make a public decomposition with the Fund’s gang. No diplomatic conversation, no understanding. Merely the rude rebuke. “They’re going to make predictions elsewhere”, he said without mincing words, during an event at the Federation of Industries in São Paulo. The IMF did not like the reprimand at all and tried to close the office, serving the minister, but mainly sending a message that relations, from then on, would change status. Worst for Brazil. It is not good manners to raise your voice to possible sources of financing and the Fund is the biggest of them. Upon closing its representation — which should happen by June 2022 — the agency’s technicians begin to deal with the country more formally and, therefore, less easily. Automatic credit programs will be disabled. Constructive dialogue must also be undermined. The Fund’s initiatives that reinforce international aid in bloc to this or that partner should no longer prioritize Brazil. In all senses, the minister’s bullying raptures, replicating the commander-in-command’s wishes, reconfigure, for the worse, bilateral relations with the entity. In exchange for what? From the way the episode took place, the primarism, almost childlike, of the Brazilian authorities is evident. Specialists point out that the government has generated yet another embarrassment on a global scale, reiterating its already vaunted reputation for political inability in the concert of nations. What could have been a negotiated exit turned into a new ridiculous affront, capable of raising doubts about the real Brazilian intentions to fulfill commitments, contracts and agreements. There is nothing to the advantage of gratuitous fighting. The minister’s debauchery with multilateral organizations is, on the contrary, clearly damaging the country’s credibility. The negative impact on foreign markets was such that, since then, the Brazilian stock exchange — also affected by this posture — has practically only registered negative numbers from there to here. Economist Elena Landau, who piloted privatizations at the BNDES and has close proximity to investors around the world, defined the agency’s dismissal as a “regrettable and ridiculous stain”. Ilan Goldfajn, ex-president of BC, now director of the IMF, in the same vein, treated Guedes’ gesture as “stingy”. One way or another, the economic czar’s opposition to the Fund is not supported by concrete bases. Numerous institutes are pointing out the systematic decline in the performance of the Brazilian economy. Not just the IMF. Fighting with the herald of information does not change reality. But it seems that people from Brasília do not understand this well.
Carlos José Marques Editorial Director
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