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Globalization: A View from the South
by Luiz Prado

Buenos Aires - which is not the capital of Brazil, as many people often guess, yet is very close - is a very visible example of what some experts call "assymetric globalization."

Let me offer an example to help define this phrase. We'll look at a very average can of soluble coffee. "Brésil Pur Arabica," says the label printed on the 500 gram can. The coffee was produced in Brazil, but the whole industrial and commercial process was "sponsored" by Carrefour, a French supermarket network. They purchased the coffee here and sent it across the Atlantic to the port of Havre. There, after being processed, it was sent back to South America: to be specific, to Buenos Aires.

In Buenos Aires, that same coffee costs 6 "pesos argentinos" - more or less our Brazilian R$12.00. I don't know how much Carrefour paid for the original Brazilian coffee but I am sure it was not that much more than a few cents per pound/ kilogram.

Assymetric globalization is not a good pairing of words, for it sounds too "clean" to truly describe this process. The long road taken by the Brazilian coffee is not different from that which our old "specialties" had taken during the colonization times.

 

Globalization is just another name that Americans created to make possible the invasion of other markets.

"Globalization is the new name for colonization," says the Brazilian politician Leonel Brizola. Globalization is just another name that Americans created to make possible the invasion of other markets, said Galbraith.

In the American Chamber of Commerce's "Update" magazine (April 2000) two diplomats, Panelli Cesar and Philip Yang, suggested that the new logic demands that the exporter must share the distribution and sale of their products, if they want a reasonable profit. They note that Brazilian shoe is exported for US$5.00 but it is sold abroad for US$75.00.

Let me get back to the coffee example: is it so difficult for our own producers to process their coffee and send it straight to a supermarket in Buenos Aires for sale... without the long trip to Havre, or to the "North"?

Countries living under such terrible pressures are easily tempted to believe that the U.S. economy will be "open" to their products.
In a broader sense, our experiences with globalization show that it sounds more like "Americanization". President Bush's clear signs for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and his pressure for a "fast track" for it are right now making the South American Common Market (Mercosul) efforts almost impossible. Because of the debt crisis in Argentina, it is very easy to split our efforts for a common (South American) market. Countries living under such terrible pressures are easily tempted to believe that the U.S. economy will be "open" to their products. As it is conceived by powerful interests of Americans and the U.S. government, the FTAA means a real lost of autonomy to our main, essential economic politics.

What the U.S. puts on the table is much more than free trade opportunities. The U.S. is also dictating the rules to many other areas of interest and commerce. If the so-called "free trade areas" are so convenient and fair, representing some kind of international maturity, why do Europe and Japan never want to share those areas with the U.S.?

The FTAA is... intentionally planned as a U.S. strategic project to consolidate its domination over Latin America.

The FTAA is much more than a free trade proposal. It is intentionally planned as a U.S. strategic project to consolidate its domination over Latin America by means of the creation of a privileged space enlarging its economic borders.

The FTAA being implemented will contribute to the actual impoverishment of our economies and the weakness of all Latin American national states.

Since the first "Americas Summit" in Miami, Florida in 1994, all the proposed regulations have not considered the amazing "assymetria" between U.S. and all other regional economies. Even if the poorest countries can improve some of their economic conditions, they will, at the same time, get a deeper satellite dependence on the American economy.

Our largest industries will have more to lose than they will have benefits to receive. The Brazilian economy is a continental one, having a multilateral vocation for foreign commerce. It cannot be reduced to a list of agreed exports. Brazil is the only South American country that has the potential conditions to contest the North American hegemonics inside the continent. Brazil will be the big loser if FTAA is finally imposed upon us.

Our productive structure is not complementary to the American one. We compete against each other in many sectors (for instance, vehicles, airplanes, steel, soya and even orange juice). But the integration of our productive system and the scale and our capacity of technological development are not similarly strong. Our basic infrastructure places us in a position of great inferiority with respect to global productivity and competitiveness. We must consider that the "liberalization" of goods, services and capitals tends to be a "one way road," with terribly destructive impacts on our national productive system.

Accepting the FTAA is like going back into a neocolonial condition. Unhappily, even our government is blind to the consequences.

To our Brazilian perspective, the problem is not to discuss different ways of "integration," conditions or deadlines to the FTAA. The main point is that, despite some minor improvements here and there to some poorer countries, the FTAA does not respond to national Brazilian interests. Accepting the FTAA is like going back into a neocolonial condition. Unhappily, even our government is blind to the consequences. They should listen to the call for a Mercosul and some other Latin American proposals for integration, because they will preserve our identity and sovereignty.

Our cry is an effort to raise the political resistence to this neocolonial "agreement". Some Brazilian politicians are asking for a plebiscite on FTAA.

The FTAA cannot be accepted as a historical fatalism. We need not say "yes." To say NO to the FTAA is a Brazilian right. This is not a kind of denial for commercial relations with the U.S. or other countries or economic blocks of the world. But it reaffirms all our trade relations according to the strong defense and protection of our national interests.

Luiz Osorio Prado is the retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pelotas, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande du Sul. He has been a longstanding member of the Anglican Peace & Justice Network. Luiz is an outspoken voice on poverty, international debt, and Brazil's "landless people." He currently lives in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil.

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