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Brazil’s relations with the US at their best ever, says Jair Bolsonaro
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. Export-Import Bank would back projects valued at $450 million in Brazil this year.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday Brazil’s relations with the United States are at their best moment ever and announced three trade facilitation agreements to ensure good business practices and to stop corruption.
“This triple package will be able to slash red tape and bring about even more growth to our bilateral trade with beneficial results for the flow of investments as well,” Bolsonaro said at a virtual summit organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, at the same conference, said Brazil was getting closer to joining the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) grouping rich nations with the support of the United States.
“We want this to happen as quickly as we can,” he said.
Pompeo said the US Export-Import Bank would back projects valued at $450 million in Brazil this year, while the US Development Finance Corp had plans involving about $1 billion in projects there.
Pompeo underscored the importance of expanding US-Brazilian economic ties, given what he called “enormous risk” stemming from the significant participation of China in the Brazilian and US economies.
“To the extent we can find ways that we can increase the trade between our two countries, we can ... decrease each of our two nations’ dependence for critical items” coming from China, he said.
“Each of our two peoples will be more secure, and each of our two nations will be far more prosperous, whether that’s two or five or 10 years from now,” he added.
