Bolsonaro’s Impact on Global Markets

Brazil’s Jair Messias Bolsonaro takes the presidential oath of office on January 1. “Bolsonaro follows a series of public corruption scandals that led to political chaos,” explain Claudia Ribeiro P. Nunes and Pedro D. Peralta for YaleGlobal Online. Nunes is a visiting scholar with the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies with the MacMillan Center at Yale and deputy coordinator of the Graduate Program in Law at Veiga de Almeida University. Peralta is a researcher at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Veiga de Almeida University. The writers explain that Bolsonaro veers in his positions on trade, urging reforms for the South American bloc Mercosur to promising flexibility, questioning Chinese influence via foreign direct investment during the campaign and later calling China a “great cooperation partner.” Another foreign policy concern is Venezuela, Brazil’s neighbor to the north in chaos due to mismanagement, corruption and poverty. US President Donald Trump has called for intervention, and the Bolsonaro administration has signaled alignment with the Trump sphere of influence. – YaleGlobal