Companies (Timberland, Vans, Kipling) and some European Governments Decide to Take Action Against Brazil Due to Jair Bolsonaro's Environmental Policy and Amazon rainforest Burning

According to information from the Brazilian Tannery Industries Center (CICB), more than 18 international brands, including Timberland, Vans, and Kipling, announced that they will suspend the purchase of Brazilian leather due to news related to burning in the Amazon region. 

The decision undermines Brazilian agribusiness. Yesterday, the CICB sent all this information to the Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, with the intention of making the current government reviewing its environmental policy and the intention to make the inspection more flexible in the region, as the minister himself and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro have promised.

The Swedish government has also announced that it will review investments of its pension funds in Brazil in light of the Amazon. In total, Swedish pension applications total R$ 650 billion worldwide. To make matters worse, Swedish Finance Minister Per Bolund made public criticism of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and the current Brazilian environmental policy.

The Norwegian government, for its part, has decided to call up Norwegian companies operating in Brazil and ask them to check whether they cause damage to the Amazon. The Norwegian government wants assurances that companies will not do business with companies that are harmful to the biome.

Today, after a tough meeting with governors of the region occurred yesterday in Brasília, where the president heard criticism from politicians like Flávio Dino, governor of Maranhão and opposition to the current federal government, the president Jair Bolsonaro was found himself almost embarrassed to step back and open the doors for bilateral aid donations to the Amazon.

The denial of the current Jair Bolsonaro government over European Union aid has been sharply criticized by the region's governors. Since Brazil is facing an economic crisis and has little money for many public services, denying receiving the money offered by the governments of Germany, Norway, and France sound almost unbelievable.

Economists believe that releasing just R$ 500 per person at FGTS will culminate in another chicken flight to the Brazilian economy

The release of about R $ 30 billion should be positive, but it should not change much the scenario of economic growth of Brazilian GDP in 2019. Overall, the forecast revisions for GDP in 2019 were very marginal. Nothing very expressive. Most analysts point to a growth of about 0.8% of GDP in 2019, ie very small.

For the former president of BNDES and former Minister of Communications, economist and engineer Luiz Carlos Mendonça de Barros, the measures presented by the government are timid to leverage the Brazilian GDP.

Economy Minister Paulo Guedes himself said in early June 2019 that releasing FGTS money before pension reform would be a “chicken flight”. Now, even though the pension reform is not fully approved, the government decides to adopt the measure.

Yesterday, during the measure's presentation ceremony, Guedes said the FGTS withdrawal will be a permanent income, not "chicken flight," as he himself had said.

For Maranhão Governor Flávio Dino, the "release of the FGTS is a good measure, but it is a trickle in the ocean of national recession."

Dino believes that “the expansion of public works is urgent. It is an emergency debt relief program to improve demand. There are ways. But we need to focus on Brazil. ”

Dino thus criticizes the policy of the current government, which is openly aimed at pleasing the international bond market.

Flavio Dino was verbally attacked by President Bolsonaro during a private conversation with the Chief Minister of the House, Onyx Lorenzoni, captured by TV microphones a few days ago.

Hashtag #OrgulhoDoNordeste grows on Twitter after an unfortunate statement from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro

After a microphone capture a biased speech of President Jair Bolsonaro against the population of the Brazilian Northeast, Twitter was taken by innumerable criticisms to the figure of Jair Bolsonaro. Last Friday (19.Jul.2019), Bolsonaro used a pejorative term to refer to the governors of the region during an informal conversation with Minister Onyx Lorenzoni.

Several Brazilian artists, politicians, and journalists have spoken publicly against the president's speech. Many of them recorded videos or wrote on Twitter strongly criticizing the conduct of Jair Bolsonaro.

In commenting on the fact, Bolsonaro stated that he was not referring to the people of the Northeast in general. He said that the pejorative term was addressed to the governors of Maranhão, Flávio Dino, and Paraíba, João Azevêdo, two politicians of the Brazilian left.

Bolsonaro, therefore, did not apologize for the use of a pejorative word.