RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s state department Itamaraty continues to negotiate with the head of the U.S. State Department, Anthony Blinken, over a truce that would allow Brazilian companies to buy fertilizer from Iran.
These negotiations are necessary because the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Iran. As a result, Brazilian companies do not feel safe purchasing Iranian fertilizer – doing business with Iran could result in punishment by the U.S. for any company that negotiates a range of products with that Asian nation.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Carlos França said this Wednesday (6) at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations and National Defense (CRE) Committee.
By gaining access to Iranian fertilizer, Brazil could become independent of fertilizer supplies from Russia, which is responsible for nearly one-third of Brazil’s fertilizer imports.
The Ukraine war limited these imports and the country, ruled by Vladimir Putin, began to suffer from Western sanctions. On the other hand, as Carlos França pointed out, Iran has large fertilizer stocks and intends to sell this input to Brazil.
There is an enormous surplus of fertilizers in Iran, but Brazilian importers have difficulty negotiating. In practice, what we are doing with Iran is a barter deal because we are paying the funds into an account in Brazil that Iran is using to buy medical supplies and food.
So I am negotiating with the United States for a temporary suspension of the embargo so that Brazilian companies can do business with Iran without fear of reprisals from the United States. Iranian fertilizers make it easier for Brazilian companies to serve European markets and the United States itself.
A few years ago, even Petrobras feared supplying an Iranian cargo ship that docked in Santa Catarina because of the possibility of North American reprisals- according to the Chancellor.
The president of CRE, Senator Kátia Abreu (PP-TO), said it was “absurd” for Brazil to depend on fertilizers under the given conditions.
It is incredible how hypocritical the use of fertilizers is here. We have water, soil, temperature, and state-of-the-art technology, but we cannot produce fertilizers.
We are imposing monstrous food insecurity on ourselves because we don’t have the most critical input to throw everything into the ground, with the technology we have but without fertilizer.
Environmental protection is central to Brazil, but neglecting autonomy in fertilizers is complicated. Without food, you can not live; we can not pretend that nothing happens – protested the senator.
At the initiative of Kátia Abreu, the CRE will soon hold a public hearing on fertilizers to bring together representatives of the government and civil society. In its response to the senator, France pointed out that Brazil had not only opened the window for negotiations with Iran but had also negotiated the purchase of fertilizer surpluses from Canada, Nigeria, and Morocco.