U.S. ambassador says Brazil will have to preserve the Amazon to enter OECD

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In front of a select virtual audience with important business people and former ministers of different governments, the American ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman, was very clear: the preservation of the Amazon is a fundamental issue for the negotiations between Brazil and the United States on several fronts.

On a crucial point, he stated that this would be a defining factor for the country’s likely entry into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a move coveted by Jair Bolsonaro’s government since 2019, and for which Brazil got formal support from Donald Trump’s government in early 2020. With the arrival of Democrat Joe Biden to the White House, Brazil will have to show results.

“The environmental issue is also important for this OECD (entry) agenda,” said Chapman on Sunday April 11, in a live transmission promoted by the Parlatório group, which brings together economists, businessmen, and lawyers.

The answer came to a question from Joaquim Levy, former Finance Minister and today director of economic strategy and market relations at Safra Bank.

Levy was one of the important names that accompanied the meeting. From the financial sector, Sylvia Coutinho, head of UBS in Brazil and the wealth management area in Latin America, was among those present.

Following the broadcast – and asking questions – were well-known personages like the former minister of development and current president of the Lide council, Luiz Fernando Furlan, and the former minister of justice, Sérgio Moro. Among those who just watched was Wilson Ferreira Jr., president of BR Distribuidora. More than 100 people accompanied the broadcast.

Chapman placed the preservation of the Amazon as the main point of attention in several themes of the Brazil-US relationship. Asked about the possibility of a free trade agreement between the two countries, for example, he said that the environmental issue needs to be “worked on” by Brazil before any discussion of labor laws and issues of human rights and indigenous peoples. “Brazil is strategic for President Biden’s environmental agenda,” he said.

In this agenda, however, the diplomat considered that the commitment must come from the Brazilian government and the private sector, which still needs to invest in environmental preservation.

“The solution (for the Amazon) is not more investment from the government, but from the private sector,” he said. “The private sector will not want to foot the bill for those who are illegally taking advantage of the Amazon.”

Still, on bilateral economic relations, the ambassador said that the U.S. government follows tax reform discussions in Brazil. There is great interest from American companies in an agreement between the two countries on the taxation of their revenues in both markets.

“Before arriving in Brazil, this issue of double taxation was the number one request of the American private sector, and a treaty will help these US$145 billion of investment that are here, but this is an issue that goes through several technical issues,” he said.

Vaccination

A frequent question from the virtual audience was about the possible destination to Brazil of vaccines against Covid-19 that the U.S. has purchased but is not using – such as the Oxford/AstraZeneca, which still awaits approval on U.S. soil, but was purchased by the White House. Chapman avoided making commitments but admitted that there are negotiations about it.

“Diplomats in Washington have been evaluating the vaccine issue to help Brazil. I have already spoken with the (Brazilian) Health Minister, and we will continue in this dialogue.”

Chapman pointed out that American companies, such as Pfizer and Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, have already signed agreements to sell the country 138 million doses of vaccines against Covid-19. He lamented, however, the delay in closing the agreements. In both cases, the government closed the purchases only in the first quarter of 2020, long after several other countries, which postponed the doses’ delivery.

“I wish these contracts had been signed earlier, so we could already have vaccines (in Brazil),” he said.

The ambassador reiterated the U.S. government’s prediction that the entire adult U.S. population will be vaccinated by the end of May, which would not be a surprise “when you invest US$12 billion” in vaccines, in his view. He avoided, however, further comments about the purchase of vaccines by the Brazilian government.

In another answer, Chapman also affirmed that there are no decisions regarding “vaccine passports” so that those who have taken Coronavac, which in Brazil constitutes the largest part of the Covid vaccination program, can enter the USA.

The vaccine, a partnership between the Chinese company Sinovac and the Butantan Institute, is not approved for use in the US.

Source: Infomoney