As some people are looking for a bigger picture I want to once again bring the real left wing struggle in Brazil right now. In general I suggest only mild/low expectations for BRICS in SA.

1- First as a reminder the analysis that Trump's election is a serious bad result for South America/Brazil still holds. Not only the USDBRL reached historic high $6,00 mark as a result of Haddad's plan. The market as expected wanted more and did not enjoy the smoke screen.

Yet on rather on another historical front the Mercosur-EU trade deal finaly happened after 25 years of negotiations. Yes almost before og BRICS was even a thing! Hilarious irony. Brazil seems to be hedging its bets, or at least accepting this geopolitical play from the EU side, I'd argue the BRICS Venezuela issue was the first sign of this hedge.

As Nakedcapitalism recently put it EU Nears Finish Line on Trade Deal With South American Bloc in an Effort to Deal Blow to China

On the South American side, there are strong reasons to believe that the deal will lead to the following:

More fires and deforestation in the Amazon. Escalation of invasion of indigenous territories, land-grabbing and violent attacks. A disruption of local food production. Increased use of dangerous pesticides.

Why Does the EU Ruling Class Want the Deal?

While agriculture products are the largest slice of the Mercosur exports to the EU (32.4 percent), mineral products are second at 29.6 percent. The South American countries have plenty of what the EU is looking for, including lithium, graphite, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements. The EU is currently almost completely reliant on China for minerals needed for EV batteries, solar panels, wind energy, and green hydrogen — all part of the bloc’s flailing green transition.

Even if the EU is able to secure more critical minerals from Mercosur with this trade deal, who will do the processing? There’s still no clear answer. Von der Leyen likes to tout her tools like the bloc’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims for the EU to process 40 percent of the strategic raw materials it uses by 2030. The NZIA allows projects to bypass many environmental and social impact reviews, but there’s no budget, and the policies do nothing to change Europe’s disadvantages, which include a lack of subsidies compared to the US and China and much higher energy costs thanks to their “de-risking” away from Russian energy.

Yet the “de-risking” — code for the EU’s eager role as a US proxy in the fight against Russia and China — continues.

Thus far, it’s mostly been a disaster on every level — strategically, economically, and environmentally.

My wholesome BRICS leader can't possibly be signing a relic of the 2000's Free Trade Agreement that only causes environmental damage and favors the landowner class that violently opposes him and the left no way!

Though the other BRICS leader can just happily smile away as these dangerous initiatives fail anyway. Is this what a win-win/mutually beneficial deal looks like?

2- I need to remind people Lula's government went from a mostly mixed to good first half to a terrible neoliberal boot on the working class second half.

The Maduro spout was not a coincidence. Lula wants to pander to many sectors including the religious fundamentalist evengelicals that demonize the Cuban/Venezuelan revolutions.

The current Haddad(Finance Minister) despite the smoke screen(some tax exemption for poor) the focus remains, cut one of the biggest Brazilian welfare programs the BPC i.e retirement and social welfare money for people who can't retire due to illness etc.

Right now we have Federal Council of Social Services (CFESS)(1) making a public announcement against it I quote below.

Among the main points, the PL imposes technological barriers to access and permanence of the benefit - such as biometric registration and registration updating, without investment to make it viable. Furthermore, it limits the real increase in the minimum wage and, consequently, the value of the BPC, putting at risk the income of the beneficiary to meet their basic needs. Another point of setback is the reduction of elderly people and people with disabilities to the category of “infra-citizens”, by changing the concept of “family” without legal, social and scientific support.

The bill also backslides in the defense of human rights and reveals its ableist nature by resuming the concept of “person with disabilities” as someone who is “incapable of independent living and working,” violating international treaties and disregarding the Brazilian Inclusion Law (LBI) itself.

The bill also jeopardizes the survival chances of families with multiple members living in poverty, as it revokes the rule that income from a BPC already granted and other social security benefits is not taken into account for the eligibility of another member for the BPC. The bill is racist, ableist, misogynistic, patriarchal, and ageist, and it undermines the Brazilian welfare state and could lead to hunger, putting the lives of the population at risk.

Therefore, we demand the withdrawal of Bill 4614/2024 from the Chamber of Deputies, we say no to fiscal adjustment, and we invite social workers to send emails and messages on the social networks of the deputies, showing that the Social Service repudiates this bill!

Among the left political opposition only mainly PSOL have managed to oppose this monstrous neoliberal attack. In his vote he says

Congressman Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ) told Brasil de Fato that the PSOL bench will analyze the proposals sent by the government, but added that the party's parliamentarians will reject any type of favoritism towards the financial market, while workers foot the bill.
“Our overall position is against this package. We are not interested in calming the market; what we are interested in is starting to reduce social inequalities in Brazil and calming the tensions arising from these contradictions in society,” he said.

Yet this whole initiative has been the Lula's government own decision, the bill came from the government and not the opposition!

*Earlier this year Brazil already made a historical decision to increase tax on cheap(<USD$50) foreign imports, almost entirely from China e.g clothing, phone casings, every sort of cheap electronic etc. Basically Brazilians buy a lot of much cheaper clothing and stuff from China. Global south deindustrialization goes brrrrr!!!!

The local retail chain capitalists don't like this as they also only import from China and sell for a profit while Brazilians could just buy from Aliexpress for far cheaper. Yes another instance of inter-BRICS fighting where imperialist capitalists won.

3- The best for last, as a final warning don't listen to just Worker Party/PT Lula fans online.

Jones Manoel's Video because fuck twitter Here is Andre Esteves, Chairman of BTG Pactual, the biggest investment bank in Latin America, bragging about how the market managed to privatize several Brazilian utility companies and the left didn't do anything.

In the last three years, we privatized three of the six largest companies under state control. This year, Sabesp is the largest sanitation company in Brazil. Last year, Copel, which is the largest company, was the largest state-controlled energy company. The year before, it was privatized.

Privatizing Eletrobras, something that 10 years ago most of us here would have thought impossible to happen.* And to remember, Eletrobras was privatized 3 months before the election. We had the privilege of coordinating the three privatizations of Copel and Eletrobras. Because it is a huge privilege and a huge responsibility. For us at BTG, now three months before the election, we are privatizing the third largest state-owned company in Brazil.

And there was no text. No one showed up at the BTG headquarters with a cardboard sign saying I am against, right? Most of us here are from a generation that saw the privatizations there in the late 90s, right? That happened in Rio de Janeiro in Praça 15, which turned into a war zone, tear gas, investors, raising of blows, union confusion, you didn't know why it was happening, right? This time we privatized Eletrobras three months before the election and no one showed up with a cardboard sign to say I'm against it, so Brazilian society has changed.

Imagine having a banker tell it to you with a straight face lol.

I said before and I maintain the warning: Lula will not be re-elected unless there is a massive course correction. Be extremely careful with thinking state level business deals between countries, which IMO is realy the maximum extent of Chinese/dengist anti-imperialism so far, actualy reflects in our day to day struggles and the political situation at the ground level.

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