Bets for Lula in China range from more factories to less dollar in trade – 02/28/2023 – Nelson de Sá

In a month, Lula lands in Beijing, and the news focuses on economic prospects.

The South China Morning Post produced an extensive report, listening to analysts linked to Chinese institutions, on the perspectives of progress in a trade agreement with Mercosur, which both Lula and Xi Jinping defended at this New Year’s Eve.

In short, the eventual “China free trade agreement in South America will have ‘clear impact’, but could irritate the United States by looking for opportunities in its ‘backyard'” (below) and accentuate the “competition” between Beijing and Washington .

The newspaper notes that, last year, “the US launched the Partnership of the Americas, for trade ties, when Brazil raised the idea of ​​a China-Mercosur free trade agreement.” The Partnership was formalized days before Lula’s recent visit to Washington — with other Latin Americans, not Brazil.

Another focus is possible bilateral deals in yuan, no longer dollars, with the announcement by the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese BC, of ​​the signing of “a memorandum of understanding on establishing compensation agreements” with the Brazilian BC, disclosed by agencies.

“The establishment of such arrangements for the renminbi or yuan would be beneficial for cross-border transactions and would further promote bilateral trade and investment facilitation,” the bank said.

At the same time, sites like Guancha and Huanqiu (Global Times) welcome the proposal for a Brazil-Argentina trade currency, also to circumvent the dollar.

Finally, the negotiation follows for the Chinese electric car maker BYD, Tesla’s biggest competitor, to take over the Ford factory in Bahia, abandoned by the American maker when it left the country two years ago.

The Chinese media, like the Brazilian one, has been reporting since November the “memorandum of understanding” between the Bahian government and BYD, on portals such as Caijing and Sina Finance.

Two weeks ago, the Chinese sectorial coverage published that, in parallel with the negotiation in Brazil, Ford is talking with BYD to sell the factory that it is abandoning in Saarland, Germany. The local ruler supports it.

MUSK AND THE LITHIUM OF MINES

According to Bloomberg, with an echo in China, Tesla owner Elon Musk is considering buying Sigma Lithium, a mining company belonging to a Brazilian fund that has been developing “a large deposit of lithium” in Minas Gerais.

Last year, three months after meeting with Musk, Jair Bolsonaro “made the rules for lithium exports more flexible”.

‘GREEN’

By video, audio, newsletter and text in English and Portuguese, “the electric Ford F-150 was launched as a way to drive ‘green’, but Bloomberg traced the aluminum from the pickup to a refinery in the Amazon accused of sickening thousands.”

The F-150 is the flagship of Joe Biden’s subsidy, who went to Detroit to drive one before the launch, as CNN and many others have shown.

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