Fernando Alcoforado*
The maintenance of the sovereignty of Brazil is directly linked to the state power in imposing its supremacy within the national territory. The principle of sovereignty is one of the foundations of international law, whereby, for example, a State cannot be subject to jurisdiction other than its own. At the external level, national sovereignty is translated into equality between States, and there is no need to speak of subordination or subservience on the international stage, and fair conditions must be ensured in the legal affairs entered into, whether in the economic, social or political field. The sovereignty in Brazil concentrates on the authority of its government that does not allow that within the national territory there is a power superior to his. In the contemporary era, the decline of Brazil as a sovereign country is shaped by the loss of its capacity to constitute a territorially confined national economy and to have it under its control.
Brazil is not a sovereign country because foreign subsidiaries control 82% of the science-based industry sector; 73% of the differentiated, and 68% of the continuous production. The dependence of Brazilian industry is not only of capital, but also foreign technology. Brazil occupies the 43rd place in the world ranking of UN technology, which directly affects the industrial performance of the country. Brazil is not a sovereign country because the denationalization of the Brazilian economy is evidenced when it is observed that of the 50 largest Brazilian companies, 26 are foreign. More than half of Brazilian companies in high-end sectors such as automotive, aeronautics, electronics, IT, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, agribusiness and mining are in the hands of foreign capital. Foreign capital is present in 17,605 Brazilian companies that account for 63% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and controls 36% of the banking sector where it owns 25% of Bradesco shares and 20% of Banco do Brasil shares. Foreign capital owns more than 30% of land in the country to produce sugar cane, livestock and soybeans. Only in the sugar – alcohol sector, the multinationals own 33% of all the lands and mills [FALCÃO. Lula. Crescimento capitalista aumenta submissão do Brasil ao capital estrangeiro (Capitalist growth increases Brazil’s submission to foreign capital). Disponível no website <http://averdade.org.br/2012/02/crescimento-capitalista-aumenta-submissao-do-brasil-ao-capital-estrangeiro/>, 2012].
In addition to not exercising the status of sovereign country, Brazil has had rulers throughout history who undermined national sovereignty by adopting policies contrary to the interests of the country, except for the governments of Getúlio Vargas, João Goulart and Ernesto Geisel. The Bolsonaro government points to making Brazil move towards full submission to the United States on the international stage by breaking further with its foreign policy tradition – recognized worldwide for basing its actions on some principles it has almost never given up, such as non-intervention, self-determination of peoples and peaceful settlement of disputes. The Brazilian foreign policy of the Bolsonaro administration is moving towards further alignment with US foreign policy interests, leaving aside initiatives of autonomous insertion in a multipolar world in which Brazil would have a much wider bargaining margin.
Brazil’s subaltern alignment with US interests is manifested in the position of the Bolsonaro government that admitted the possibility of installing a US military base in Brazil that was consummated with the delivery of the Alcântara Base, the transfer of the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the de-nationalization of Embraer with its sale to Boeing, and the nomination of Eduardo Bolsonaro, an avowed adept of Donald Trump, as Brazil’s ambassador to the United States. How to justify the installation of a US military base in Brazil other than the submission of the Bolsonaro government to the United States? How to justify alignment with Israel and the relocation of the Tel Aviv embassy to Jerusalem, putting at risk our export of Halal meat – considered to be the world’s largest producer and exporter of beef, the world’s second largest producer and exporter of chicken and leader in Halal beef sales – for the Arab countries, other than the submission the submission of the Bolsonaro government to the United States? How to justify the denationalization of one of the largest national companies with a high degree of technology such as Embraer other than the submission of the Bolsonaro government to the United States? How to justify his son Eduardo Bolsonaro as ambassador of Brazil in Washington, other than the submission of the Bolsonaro government to the United States?
The Bolsonaro government attacks national sovereignty by making a gigantic oil auction in the Pre-Salt area by making the greatest delivery of national wealth of history. Recently, one of the largest auctions of national wealth has been held. The fields of Aram, Southeast of Lula, South and Southwest of Jupiter and Boomerang were all auctioned, all adjacent to the rich fields already auctioned of Lula and Jupiter. There are no official estimates, but at least 10 billion barrels of pre-salt oil are expected to fall into foreign hands. For the current oil price the recent auction means a delivery of a value that could reach US$ 1.5 trillion. This first auction of the Bolsonaro government is only preparatory to the delivery of the “Crown Jewel” with the surplus area of the “onerous assignment” that will go to auction soon, whose oil volume is about 11 billion barrels, which some estimates up to 30 billion barrels in these giant fields. It is a fortune that will be given on a platter to Shell, Total, Repsol, and other foreign companies. When the onerous assignment is the auction, the fields of Búzios, Itaipu, Atapu and Sepia will be delivered. Petrobras will be left out, and will be a minority shareholder of the foreign company that will snatch most of it.
Since the Temer government foreign participation in the sack of national wealth has increased exponentially, with privatizations of oil fields belonging to Petrobras and with new auctions that, in two years, the foreign production went from 7% to 23%. With the new auctions to be held by the Bolsonaro government, most of the national production will soon be foreign, demonstrating the entreguista character of its government that is at the service of the god Market, of Wall Street, of the Consensus of Washington and against the Brazilian people. And, more than that, it is conniving with the continued actions of the American empire and multinational corporations to dominate Brazil. The Bolsonaro government is carrying out the dismantling of Petrobras with the privatization of its refineries and subsidiaries of distribution and transportation, to privatize Petrobras at the end of the process, besides being willing to deliver Brazil and its wealth to international investors, in short, public assets with the privatization of Eletrobras, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, BNDES, hydroelectric plants, etc., whose sole objective is unlimited profit. Captain Bolsonaro does not seem to have assimilated the patriotic teachings he received in the Army.
The Bolsonaro government intends to privatize all the public assets and, consequently, to foreign capital. Privatization implies, in fact, what is commonly called “denationalization”, where controlling acquirers are almost always (if not always!) Foreign companies or consortia, often state-owned companies from other countries whose profits are remitted to their outside. The use of the term “privatization” is a way of hiding its true purpose, which is to hand over the nation’s assets to foreign capital. It might be imagined that privatizations would benefit nationally-owned companies, but this is not the case because the weak national companies do not have the financial capacity to acquire state-owned enterprises located in strategic sectors such as oil, electricity and infrastructure. If everything moves in this direction there will be little left in Brazil economic sectors belonging to Brazilians.
In order to defend national sovereignty, it urges the position of the patriots who are members of the Parliament and of the Judiciary, Civil Society organizations and the Armed Forces to jointly bar the Bolsonaro anti-patriotic acts prejudicial to Brazil’s interests.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).