SCENESETTER CABLE FOR VISIT OF CODEL BLUNT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 000373 SIPDIS STATE PLEASE PASS TO CODEL BLUNT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OREP ETRD PREL BR SUBJECT: SCENESETTER CABLE FOR VISIT OF CODEL BLUNT REF: STATE 23775 ¶1. The United States Mission in Brazil warmly welcomes your visit to Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo, February 22-23 and February 25-28. As requested reftel, Mission grants courtesy country clearance for your travel. (Threat assessment to be sent septel.) Overall Mission Control Officer for your visit will be our Economic Counselor, Bruce Williamson. Economic Officer Erin McConaha will be the control officer in Rio de Janeiro and Consul General Simon Henshaw will be the control officer in Manaus. To set the stage for your visit, we have prepared some background material (below). BACKGROUND ¶2. Brazil is the largest country in Latin America in area (bigger than the continental U.S.) and population (184 million). Most of its industry, including auto, steel, petrochemical, and aircraft sectors, is in the southeastern states. The country is among the world's leading producers of sugar, coffee, soybeans, meats, tobacco, and orange juice. Internal migration from the poor northeastern states continues to feed urban growth in the southeast, particularly the megacities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has among the world's most unequal distributions of income and arable land. Crime, drug abuse, and environmental degradation are grave and growing problems. Historically, Brazil's values have mostly paralleled our own, and bilateral relations have been generally amicable. During World War II, the US established airbases in the northeastern states ("the Trampoline to Victory"),and Brazil was the sole South American nation whose troops fought alongside the Allies in Europe. After the 9/11 attacks, then-President Cardoso was the first to invoke the Rio Treaty in solidarity with the U.S. Brazil continues to respond to U.S. requests for support against terrorism at an operational level. PRESIDENT LULA ¶3. Two years into his four-year term, President Lula da Silva has convinced financial markets that his government is handling Brazil's economic challenges responsibly and well. Lula is Brazil's first working-class President - he was a metalworker and union leader who founded the left-of- center Workers' Party (PT) in 1980. Hallmarks of the administration's first twenty months have been responsible fiscal policies, passage of major tax and pension reform legislation, but a slow start on the social agenda. ¶4. While part of the administration's appeal is based on its accessibility (Lula began his term giving access to civil society organizations such as labor, NGOs, and religious groups, as well as consulting with key governors and mayors),Lula's style has evolved toward a more workable and standard governing style. His inner circle of advisors includes Chief of Staff Jos Dirceu, Communications Secretary Luiz Gushiken, Finance Minister Antonio Palocci, and Staff Secretary General Luiz Dulci. In recent years, the PT party has moderated its leftist orthodoxy and moved toward the center, creating a noisy backlash from the party's small radical wing but making it easier for the party to forge alliances with centrist parties and to appeal to the business community. ¶5. Public security remains one of the administration's greatest challenges. Organized crime has grown steadily bolder, particularly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where at times the authorities seem to exert only tenuous control. The administration's long-term solution is that economic and social progress will address the causes of crime. But in the short run, the situation has worsened. ECONOMIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS ¶6. President Lula has made economic growth and poverty alleviation top priorities. Export growth figures prominently in official plans to fuel economic growth and reduce Brazil's historical vulnerability to international financial market gyrations. At the same time, though, the economic and social benefits of liberalizing the import regime are not widely touted, and the fear of job losses remains. To boost exports, the government is seeking foreign markets through trade negotiations, stepping up government financing for exports, and establishing export promotion expertise in its embassies. The government is also trying to lower the overall "Brazil cost" associated with local production by addressing systemic fiscal issues such as social security and tax reform, with labor and microeconomic reforms also targeted in the medium-term, as well as seeking funds for infrastructure improvements through public-private partnerships. ¶7. After weak economic growth in 2002 and 2003, 2004 proved to be a very good year. GDP expanded at a rate of 5 percent, the best result since 1994. Consumer price inflation dropped to 7.6 percent, down from 9.3 percent in ¶2003. And exports in 2004 reached an all-time record at US$ 96 billion, substantially over the GOB's original target of US$ 73 billion. ¶8. For economic as well as geopolitical reasons, the Lula administration is aggressively seeking expanded trade ties, particularly with developing countries. Brazil and its Mercosul partners are negotiating trade agreements with the EU, South Africa, Russia, and India and are considering trade talks with China - Brazilian exports to China have doubled in the last year. Brazil places particular importance on expanding trade ties with its South American neighbors. Mercosul has free-trade regimes with several South American countries. FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS - FTAA ¶9. The U.S. and Brazil have been Co-Chairs of the FTAA ("ALCA" in Portuguese) negotiations since November 2002. It has been a difficult period fraught with uncertainty over Brazil's commitment to the negotiations. While the Lula administration shed the extreme anti-FTAA Workers' Party rhetoric of the 2002 presidential campaign, it has not embraced the FTAA as a priority. Strong Brazilian commercial interests have yet to overcome ideological hurdles to what is viewed as a "U.S.-led initiative." ¶10. During the FTAA Ministerial in Miami in November 2003, the US and others agreed to a new framework for negotiations to accommodate the sensitivities of Mercosul countries, principally Brazil (agricultural domestic support and trade are Brazil's principal areas of focus in the FTAA). The compromise allowed countries to assume different levels of commitments, but guaranteed that there would be a common set of rights and obligations covering all the original areas of negotiation. Since Miami, negotiations to define that "common set" have not been successful. Brazilian officials publicly have blamed US inflexibility for the failure to reach agreement. FOEIGN POLICY ¶11. President Lula has run an activist foreign policy with a focus on South America. He has moved to revitalize Mercosul as a trading bloc - quickly meeting with new Argentine President Kirchner. In addition, Brazil took the lead in creating the "Friends of Venezuela" to find peaceful solutions to the crisis in that country, and has played helpful roles in Bolivia. In June 2004, Brazil deployed a 1,600-person unit to Haiti to lead UN peacekeeping operations there. Though some predicted that Lula would aggressively tilt towards Cuba, that has not been the case. The executions of Castro opponents in 2003 provoked official expressions of concern from Brazilian officials, though little willingness to change their standard positions. Lula visited Cuba in September 2003. ¶12. Brazil has a long tradition of commitment to the UN and other multilateral institutions. Many Brazilians were therefore deeply concerned by the war in Iraq, viewing it as a sign of US unilateralism. President Lula voiced public opposition to the war, although this opposition never jeopardized bilateral relations and both sides have continued to work as before on the broader bilateral agenda. ENVIRONMENT ¶13. As one of the world's "megadiverse" countries, environmental issues loom large in Brazil. The Lula administration further boosted this profile with the choice of Marina Silva -a former Senator from the Amazonian state of Acre associated with murdered environmental activist Chico Mendes- as Minister of the Environment. 22% of the world's known plant species exist in Brazil, and the figures for birds (17%),mammals (11%),and fish (11%) are also significant. ¶14. The Amazon basin holds 20% of the world's fresh water. The relationship between the Amazon and global climate change is a topic of great debate. About 83% of the Amazon forest remains intact, while only 7% of the Atlantic Forest ("Mata Atlantica") remains. The rate of Amazon deforestation roughly parallels that of GDP growth, and it is driven by strong expansion in Brazilian agriculture, particularly the drive for land by the cattle and soy industries. The government's ability to regulate economic activity and environmental conservation in the Amazon and other remote areas needs to improve. More than 20 million Brazilians live in the Amazon, and environmentally-sustainable economic development of the region -including reduced-impact logging, rubber-tapping, and nut/plant collecting- is recognized by the government and many in the environmentalist community as the only viable alternative to wholesale deforestation. Protecting forests in parks and reserves is necessary but not sufficient to turn the tide against deforestation. Within 10 years, 12% of the Amazon will be protected in parks. AGRICULTURE ¶15. The agricultural sector (including agribusiness) accounts for 30 % of Brazil's GDP, and in 2004, accounted for 41 percent of all Brazilian exports and registered a positive balance of trade of 34 billion dollars. The agricultural sector is dynamic and growing, especially in the center-west regions of the country, where abundant fertile "frontier" land area remains available for agricultural expansion. Brazil's total land area of approximately 850 million hectares (2.2 billion acres) includes 350 million hectares of Amazon rainforest (41 percent),50 million hectares of cultivated land (6 percent),150 million hectares of breeding pastures (18 percent),and an estimated 90 million hectares (11 percent) of land still available for farming (mostly 'cerrado'). A USDA report estimates that 170 million hectares of cerrado remains available for farming, assuming that at least half of the breeding pastures can be easily converted to crop production. Brazil has an estimated 5.8 million farms and about 30 million people living in rural areas, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of the population. ¶16. Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar cane, ethanol, coffee, tropical fruits, frozen concentrated orange juice, and has the world's largest commercial cattle inventory (50 percent larger than the US) at 175 million head. Brazil is also an important producer of soybeans (second to the United States),corn, cotton, cocoa, tobacco, rice, and forest products. It is also one of the world's largest wheat importers, Argentina being its primary wheat supplier. The remainder of agricultural output is in the livestock sector, mainly the production of beef and poultry (second to the US),pork, milk, and seafood. DANILOVICH