Your second paragraph is ideological gibberish. Brazil was always miles distant from leading BRICS, which is merely a buzzword to captivate through vanity the minds of theirs political elites.

By playing international influence game, the workers party managed to overflow Brazilian market with cheap and unfairly produced Chinese industrial goods, paying for it by selling most of our mineral commodities and committing with money-sink international projects with African dictatorships.

At the same time, the aforementioned party gave billions of dollars in infrastructure projects throughout Latin America bolivarian states, that without a doubt won't make returns in any way.

If that is what you call "international influence", I'm relieved we gave it up.

> At the same time, the aforementioned party gave billions of dollars in infrastructure projects throughout Latin America bolivarian states, that without a doubt won't make returns in any way.

First and foremost, the money went to Brazilian companies that built that infrastructure.

Second, it was a loan that has to be paid back by those governments.

Third, the loan is covered by insurance.

> First and foremost, the money went to Brazilian companies that built that infrastructure.

In every loan that got investigated, the money seems to have gone into corrupt politicians pockets, both inside and outside of Brazil.

Not only this, but even if the money comes back anyhow (and I am casting doubt on it, never heard of any insurances) all the international influence built will be lost, because it was done specifically for the parties of some countries supporting tyrants.

There was no plan for Brazilian international relevance, but a plan for colluded political parties, to disintegrate nationalities.

Your reply seems equally ideological to me. The reality is that it's a complex situation, and that there is a non-trivial political concession in dropping reciprocity.

I think dropping it makes sense, because pragmatically the damage outweighs the benefits. But simplistic, partisan tarring of existing policy doesn't help us learn anything new.

What is ideological about my statements? There are only facts with named actors in it. Or simply by casting the wrong names makes it be tagged ideological?

> money-sink international projects with African dictatorships.

You mean like those projects that China funds to successfully increase their international relevance and financial prosperity? Like all the ports and plants and railways?

That’s it! For the Chinese they were great. What was gained by Brazil, if not some temporary seats on some international bureaucracy, with hardly any Brazilian commons ever hearing of it?

Lol. I am talking about "stance" and "goals" of political parties on that paragraph, there's not even my opinion on which is better. You either have a reading impairment or are just plain trolling.

I visited Brazil with an American passport a few years ago and ended up spending a bunch of time gathering documents and visiting the embassy back and forth. It was pretty discouraging and draining and I thought about not going.

Potentially turned away tourists, but now I also I understand what it's like to go through the process and I'm a big proponent of more free borders. It's a double edge sword, but it certainly left a similar impact on the other Americans I met in Brazil as well.

> I visited Brazil with an American passport a few years ago and ended up spending a bunch of time gathering documents and visiting the embassy back and forth. It was pretty discouraging and draining and I thought about not going.

That is the same as when a Brazilian would like to visit the US. This general waiving of requirements simply guarantees that Brazil's the only one getting the short end of the stick. A negotiated reciprocal agreement would be much better.

>> reciprocal agreement would be much better

It would also be completely unrealistic as millions of Brazilians would just go to the US and stay there. Reciprocity doesn't work between countries with significantly different wealth and standard of living.

I've been on the receiving end of US visa process. They require you to demonstrate that you have substantial ties to your country that would make it more likely that you'll eventually leave the US. Income, real estate or other assets, children/wife staying, that kind of thing. That's not a guarantee you'll return, of course, it just makes it more likely.

> It would also be completely unrealistic as millions of Brazilians would just go to the US and stay there.

Millions? I don't think so. Maybe a few thousands? I think you overestimate the amount of people in Brazil who fancy a life in the US. Furthermore, I also think you overestimate the amount of people who, fancying a life in the US, are actually able to secure financial and social resources to move there.

Brazilians have visa-free access to Europe[0] and you don't see "millions of Brazilians" just going there and staying. Why would it be different?

[0] Technically there's a visa which is granted on arrival

I don't know about living in Europe illegally, but I can tell you that I at one point considered moving to Germany legally (and was offered a job there, which is very much a prerequisite for such a move).

I have found their immigration process so onerous, I decided against it. One of the most irritating things was, my wife would not be able to work for 5 years (IIRC, it's been a while) if there are _any_ Germans whatsoever willing to take the job she'd be applying for. She's an accountant, so that would definitely be the case. I mean, I see the point of all this _for Germany_, but that definitely put them at a disadvantage in attracting me to work there, in addition to much lower pay that my profession gets in Germany (which, ironically made the second income much more desirable).

People in the US seem to think that EU is this open borders paradise where "ihre papiere bitte" is not a thing. It very much is a thing.

Because it's far easier to live in the US without papers. It's much more difficult to do that in Europe.

I would like to see some stats on Brazilian immigration in Europe vs USA, both legal and ilegal.

Sometimes, Brazilians in US are categorized as Latinos but in reality, outside Boston and maybe Florida, there isn’t that expressive Brazilian communities in the USA.

There's nearly a million Brazilians in the US, including nearly 100,000 in NYC alone [0].

Protip: Go to Carioca in Astoria or Copacabana on 39th Ave. Holy shit Brazilians can cook.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Americans

I guess my motivation was more to dwelve on historical fact European immigration to Brazil could make easier for European Brazilians descendants to immigrate back to Europe legally? Yet, I suspect it is not as much as it could be.

You still only tasted the bureaucracy annoyance. For visiting the USA you have that plus the problems of being turned away by sheer caprice of the border agent. In the end you still are being treated much better all things considered.

Your problem is that you don't have an American passport, you have a United States passport. It would be pretty nice if American passports would exist.

You do know that "American" is shorthand for citizen of the USA in everywhere else in the world, right?

Like the word "Yankee". Both words seem to rub some people the wrong way.

Personally, I avoid using the words "American" or "America", as they can be ambiguous: are you talking about the country, or the continent?

> this action makes it clear that the current administration is giving up any hopes of international influence

That's not a honest evaluation.

The current administration is giving up negotiation power on getting Brazilians more freedom of movement in exchange of facilitating foreigners tourism into Brazil.

You are free to disagree with the government's priorities, but you can't deny it is a meaningful exchange (it is not simply giving up stuff), and that it's aligned with its campaign promises, that people overwhelming approved (as 4 of the top 5 candidates had similar proposals).

> it was a way to press for more international access for the citizens.

Does it work against large/rich countries?

The US and Canada are being forced to allow visa free travel for Romanians and Hungarians, so their response has been to create a visa that’s not a visa.

Actually its Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania

Most recently, It was just the 2 I had mentioned for Canada.

But it depends how far you want to go back. E.g. visas for Croatians used to be required, but scrapped a long time ago.

> it was just reciprocating the visa requirement of Brazilians to visit those destinations. it was a way to press for more international access for the citizens.

If this was the case, did the strategy work? I'm not sure if there are any countries that reversed its Brazil visa requirement due to reciprocity. Visa policies typically don't sway to political actions like reciprocity unless the country has some kind of leverage. I love Brazil but on this front I feel it overestimated its geopolitical importance (speaking as someone who went through the trouble to get a 5-year Brazil visa and am happy I no longer need one).

The visa requirements necessitated me going to San Francisco to apply in person, which was a non-trivial expenditure of both time and money.

That was the idea, just to reciprocate what Brazilian (or Latin American citizens in general) have to do to get a visa for the USA.

One funny part of the implementation of reciprocity is that you could pay a visa expediter to actually deliver the passport and visa request without going to the consulate in person, whereas the U.S. consulates abroad don't allow this option. That means that the reciprocity was often more financial than, well, experiential.

> whereas the U.S. consulates abroad don't allow this option.

I wouldn't know whether this is allowed or not, as I never had use for such a service, but I know a few people myself who used an expediter in Brazil ("despachante") to ease the process of getting a U.S. visa.

Huh! Do you know what the expediter does in this case? Don't the visa applicants still have to visit the U.S. consulate in person for an interview?

At least in Argentina, from what I've seen from friends hiring them (i didn't cuz i thought it was a waste of money and also i don't trust strangers to give them all my personal data to fill some forms for me), they just handle the same stuff that you can do on your own, basically:

- go to the embassy's web page,

- load all your personal information for the visa application in the web page.

- schedule an interview

- schedule the visit to the CAS (where they take you a photo and your fingerprints).

So, basically, they manage the bureaucratic procedures that happen BEFORE you get to the interview, and give you advice on the documentation you should take with you to prove you are economically rooted to your country (so you won't become an illegal immigrant)...

But you still need to go personally to both the CAS and the Embassy (on 2 different days). So, not really worth it for anyone who knows how to use a webpage.

As far as I know it has to do with documentation, easier scheduling of the interviews for people who live far away from the consulate, as well as some queueing thing.

Clearly I know very little.

Agreed. I was mostly noting that "the visa requirement for those countries were a formality" is one hell of a formality when it's multiple days and hundreds of dollars of travel.

It's also worth noting that those "few hundred dollars" represent about half of an average monthly salary for people in those countries.... so, the real cost of getting a visa for people in those countries is much higher in the end.

Exactly like the reverse case. What would be better for Brazil is to waive requirements both ways. This just puts Brazil in a clear position of inferiority.

Brazil as a leader of BRICS ? Whoever believed that must be smoking something strong. China and India would be the main contenders for that place and China is at least 3x more powerful than India.

Brazil can not have much international influence. Sadly, USA has played a deliberate role in keeping South American countries crime ridden and unstable. Brazil is at max a weak colony of USA.