Trade Liberalization in Brazil: When and How? (original) (raw)

WORKING PAPER TRADE POLICY Brazil's Slow and Uncertain Shift from Protectionism to Free Trade

If internal problems weren't enough, Brazil' s trade-related objectives will likely confront stronger headwinds from the global economy. In a context where there is advancement of incipient US-led global trade negotiations like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, both Mercosur and the WTO tend to feel an impact. The success of these two potentially transformative trade arrangements will greatly depend on the Obama administration' s ability to push negotiations. Nonetheless, talks on TPP and TTIP promise to dominate the global trade landscape over the next two years, obfuscating or even undermining Brazil' s trade policy priorities.

Brazil’s Trade Policy: Moving Away

2008

In the 1990s, Brazil went through important trade policy changes. It carried out unilateral liberalization and also engaged in an ambitious project of regional integration (Mercosur) and in various trade negotiations. These changes, however, took place within the limits set down by the paradigms of foreign and trade policies inherited from the period of protectionist industrialization. This explains both the specific features of unilateral liberalization (and its results) and the defensive stance systematically adopted by Brazil on the different trade negotiation fronts. In the past few years, these paradigms have been challenged in the field of trade negotiations by interests whose emergence is associated with structural changes in the economy, especially the consolidation of a highly competitive agribusiness. Under this scenario, Brazil is being pressured to revise its paradigm of foreign and trade policies and to deepen its integration with the international economy. As a result,...

Brazil’s Slow and Uncertain Shift from Protectionism to Free Trade

If internal problems weren't enough, Brazil' s trade-related objectives will likely confront stronger headwinds from the global economy. In a context where there is advancement of incipient US-led global trade negotiations like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, both Mercosur and the WTO tend to feel an impact. The success of these two potentially transformative trade arrangements will greatly depend on the Obama administration' s ability to push negotiations. Nonetheless, talks on TPP and TTIP promise to dominate the global trade landscape over the next two years, obfuscating or even undermining Brazil' s trade policy priorities.

The political economy of trade and industrial policy reform in Brazil in the 1990s

1993

This document was prepared by Messrs. Gustavo H.B. Franco and Winston Fritsch for the Regional Project "Proposals for Policy Reforms to Increase the Effectiveness of the State in Latin America and the Caribbean (HOL/90/S45)",carried out by ECLAC with the financing of the Netherlands. The views expressed in this work are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily coincide with those of the Organization.

Trade Policy in Brazil: Causes and Consequences of Our Isolation

Contexto Internacional

Mainstay of the growth in world economies since the 16th century, international trade gives rise to a diversity of theoretical and empirical research studies that go beyond International Economic Policy, and transition between Economics, Political Science and International Relations (Martin 2015). By addressing subjects that range from its net effect on economies (Dix-Carneiro 2014) and its capacity for distributional impact (Helpman 2016; Pavcnik 2017) to labour market arrangements (Helpman, Itskhoki and Redding 2010), cross-border trade entails issues such as migration, the environment, and human rights, to name a few. This is no different in the Brazilian context. Brazilian foreign trade performance, a recurring issue that engenders apparently irreconcilable positions, is revisited and updated in the book Política Comercial no Brasil: Causas e Consequências do Nosso Isolamento, written by Emanuel Ornelas, João Paulo Pessoa and Lucas Ferraz, especially from a domestic decision-making process perspective. The work, published in 2020, expands the debate as it investigates the country's transactional dynamics from re-democratisation to the present moment, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The book adds a detailed diagnosis on the causes of Brazil's timid performance in the foreign market and gives some prescriptions on how to optimize the export and import flow and, consequently, stimulate increased productivity in the country and its greater integration into the Global Value Chains. From the initial finding that Brazil is 'relatively closed' (Ornelas, Pessoa and Ferraz 2020: 22), the authors question what motives have led successive governments of different ideologies in recent decades not to cause the country to 'engage more' (Ornelas, Pessoa and Ferraz 2020: 214) with the rest of the world. To explain some of these factors, the researchers carried out a bibliographical review of the Economic Policy and made inferences, based on previous empirical studies, about the evolution of the recent trade

The impacts of trade liberalization and integration strategies on Brazilian economy . ( Working in progress )

2006

economy. (Working in progress) Allexandro Mori Coelho Eduardo Amaral Haddad Abstract This paper aims to present the CGE model developed and implemented in order to evaluate the changes in employment, output and macroeconomic variables associated with distinct trade liberalization and integration strategies at national and state levels. Once we have obtained the estimates for the Brazilian economy, a top-down disaggregation is used to estimate the impacts on its 27 states. The model will indicate what would be the macro, sectoral and spatial effects on Brazilian economy if a specific were implemented, giving conditions to compare effects and shedding light on choice decision among alternative trade and integration strategies, since each trade agreement would entail different impacts on national economy and on its 27 sub-national spaces.

2488) Brazilian trade policy in historical perspective: constant features, erratic behavior (2013)

Revista Brasileira de Direito Internacional – Brazilian Journal of International Law , 2013

Brazilian Journal of International Law (vol. 10, n. 1, 2013, número especial: Direito Internacional Econômico; p. 11-26; doi:10.5102/rdi.v10i1.2393; ISSN: 2236-997X (impresso) - ISSN 2237-1036 (on-line) Historical essay on Brazilian trade policies since the 19th century, seen in connection with industrial and development policies that were implemented not always in a coordinated manner. Brazil was, and probably continues to be, one of the most protectionist countries in the world, at the beginning for fiscal reasons (financing of the State), then, in the 20th century, on behalf of deliberate industrializing and import substitution goals. The essay surveys the many policies followed in different phases of Brazilian economic history, including the regional integration process of Mercosur and the multilateral and hemispheric trade negotiations; it also discusses the recent re-commoditization of its foreign trade and the retrocession to a series of patently defensive policies, justified by a lack of competitiveness of its industries, by the way due to the excessive taxation and the bureaucratic entanglements set up by the very State that seeks to protect those industries from foreign competition.

Different Partners, Different Patterns: Trade and Labour Market Dynamics in Brazil's Post-Liberalisation Period

OECD Trade Policy Papers, 2013

The OECD Trade Policy Working Paper series is designed to make available to a wide readership selected studies by OECD staff or by outside consultants. This paper has been developed as a contribution to the International Collaborative Initiative on Trade and Employment (ICITE) coordinated by the OECD. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD, OECD member country governments or partners of the ICITE initiative. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.