Brazil-US relations: a conversation with Minister Ernesto Araújo – March 5, 2021

Susan Segal: Good afternoon. I am Susan Segal and I am President and CEO of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. I would like to send a very warm welcome to our members, special guests, and everyone from around the world who are tuning in to our live webcast. It is a pleasure this afternoon to welcome our guest of honor, Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, and the Ambassador of Brazil to the United States, Nestor Forster.

After being appointed by President Bolsonaro, the Foreign Minister took office in January of 2019. He was formerly Director of the Department of the United States, Canada, and Inter-American Affairs. He also served at the Brazilian Mission to the European Communities in Brussels and the embassies in Germany, Canada, and the United States.

As the two largest democracies and economies in the Western Hemisphere, the United States and Brazil have long shared a commitment to economic development and prosperity in the region. Both are continental countries with diversified economies and strong investments. The United States is Brazil's second-largest trading partner, and the most important destination for Brazilian exports in services and manufactures. At US$ 108 billion, the United States accounted for 19% of all foreign direct investment in Brazil in 2018, the second-largest single-country stock of Brazilian FDI that year.

Last October, Brazil and the United States signed a new protocol on trade rules and transparency, the so-called mini trade deal, with provisions that facilitate trade, improve regulatory cooperation and strengthen anti-corruption efforts between the two countries. This recent diplomatic achievement shows the depth of this relationship and the potential for further cooperation. This is precisely why this meeting is so timely, especially in the light of the new administration in the United States. Brazil is a key market for many of our core members around the world, and we thank you once again, Mr. Minister, for joining us today. This event is on the record. The Minister will speak and then he will take questions. So if you have a question, please send it in writing to me, the presenter, via Web Xchat, and your question will be added to the queue. Before giving the floor to the Minister, it is my great pleasure to first turn it over to Nestor Forster, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, for opening comments. Mr. Ambassador, the floor is yours.

Nestor Forster: Thank you, Susan. Good afternoon to all of you who join us here today. I want to thank Susan Segal and the Council of the Americas for organizing this event with Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo. As Susan said at the outset, it could not be more timely, as Brazil and the United States enter a new phase in our two-hundred-year partnership between the two largest democracies and the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere.

Our two governments have already interacted on numerous occasions since President Joe Biden's inauguration. Presidents Bolsonaro and Biden have exchanged substantive letters in which they have reaffirmed the bonds of friendship between our countries and the core principles and values shared by our peoples. The two leaders have also mapped out the way ahead for cooperation in key areas, such as environmental protection, clean energy, trade and investment, science and technology, and, of course, the promotion of our democratic values in our hemisphere and beyond.

On the Brazilian side, Minister Araújo stands at the forefront of this agenda and has already spoken to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about the renewed relevance of our strategic alliance in the face of multiple regional and global challenges. Minister Araújo, alongside with Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, also had a joint meeting with the special presidential envoy for climate, former Secretary John Kerry, discussing how we can work together on climate change and fighting deforestation, and the challenges of sustainable development, both at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

Let me just add that we appreciate the role played by the Council of the Americas and its members, who have historically supported our endeavors towards a closer bilateral relationship, a true source of prosperity and well-being for Brazilians and Americans alike. The Brazilian government is always open to hearing the views of representative groups within both the US and Brazilian society on how to deepen mutual understanding and find new ways to strengthen our ties. In this spirit and under the guidance of Minister Araújo, our embassy in Washington has been constantly reaching out to leaders of all sectors to promote a candid exchange of views on all topics. I believe Minister Araújo’s presence among us today confirms once again Brazil's openness to dialogue and consensus-building and its commitment to work with our American friends towards new and ambitious goals.

In closing, let me just say that nobody has been a greater champion for a renewed Brazil-US partnership than Foreign Minister Araújo. And I am sure you all look forward to hearing from him today. I am sure I do. Thank you very much.

Susan Segal: Mr. Minister, the floor is yours.

Minister Ernesto Araújo: Thank you so much, Susan Segal, thank you, Susan, for this introduction and also to Ambassador Forster, who is also doing a terrific job. We would not be able to be doing so much between Brazil and the US without your presence there and your amazing work in Washington. Thank you for everyone watching. It is really a great opportunity to be here with you to talk about where we are now in this so important partnership between Brazil and the United States. To assess where we are, maybe we can start by talking a little bit about where we were until two years ago and for quite some time. I think we can say that for two or three decades before President Bolsonaro came into power, we had a strong deficit of confidence, a very pronounced deficit of confidence between Brazil and the US for different reasons. We could analyze this or psychoanalyze this, but it was there. It was there and recognized by, I think, people from both sides.

The impulse was sometimes there for better relationships, but during those three decades, we could not overcome that deficit of confidence. I think that it had to do, and it is our self-criticism that speaks here, maybe it was a problem on both sides. But from our perspective, maybe the main reason was that since the beginning of the 1990s, Brazil decided to stay away from what was happening basically in the world, the beginning of globalization with the restructuring of world trade change, economic change, and also this new drive towards a world really built for democracy. Brazil stayed away from big trade initiatives, we never wanted to go towards some sort of NAFTA-style agreement with the United States or with other partners. Later, Brazil avoided and worked to, let us say, I do not want to use the word destroy, maybe it is not too strong, the idea of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the FTAA. So Brazil not only did not want to be a part of that but did not want anyone to be a part of FTAA. We took an adversarial attitude towards the US and other developed countries at the WTO, for example. We decided for some reason to just be a part of, let us say, the developing team as if the world was divided between two teams: developing countries and developed countries, which led to a stalemate also at WTO level.

But not only in trade. This has to do with our attitude to trade, but it is a different dimension. Brazil wanted to be a part of some sort of South American bloc, conceived as a bloc hostile to the US or at least very distant and cold to the United States. A bloc that started to take different shapes in the 2000s, but it was based on a very ideological approach from the early 1990s where some leaders of Latin America, some of them who became presidents of their respective countries, decided to try to rebuild in Latin America the Iron Curtain that had just disappeared in Eastern Europe, and this more or less converged to the idea of the UNASUR in the 2000s, even with ideas of building some sort of the defense capacity that would be able to, let us say, protect this space as something closed to the north of the continent and open to we do not know what.

This was basically a Lula-Chaves joint venture, so to say, which, of course, drew us very much apart from the US, because, at the same time, inside that project, Brazil was also away from democracy promotion efforts in the region, away from recognizing the threats to democracy that were emerging, for example, in Venezuela, because to a large extent, those threats were built in Brazil or with Brazilian participation. This system was irrigated to a large extent by corruption schemes that departed from Brazil, that had roots in Brazil, that helped maintain some political currents in power in so many other Latin American countries. A project that was very different from anything that could fit into a productive Brazil-US partnership and, of course, was not conducive to confidence between us.

And in all that, it was not a question of hostility or indifference to the United States as such. It was more, I think, hostility to, let us say, the Western model, the Western model, which is not a geographic concept because Eastern Asian nations are part of that, and other countries, the model of a liberal democracy with a market economy and openness to the world. The model that people opted for in that times, something that we can give different names to, but one name that I like to call it is narco-socialism because it also points in the direction of the connections that sort of scheme had with organized crime in the region.

So, at the same time, from point of view of Brazil, preferential relations started to be built with powers from outside the region, from other continents who became our main export markets and strategic investors in the region, in Brazil, especially in infrastructure. This goes with no criticism to the partnership that was developed with those countries, but shows that, for quite some time, a conscious effort was made to replace our traditional economic and trade partnership and investment partnership with the United States and other developed countries with other partnerships.

Brazil shunned, let us say, OECD as the cornerstone of that sort of Western liberal democratic model with market economies and avoided any other trade agreements, not only FTAA or some NAFTA-style agreement, but the EU-Mercosur agreement, I mean, it was there, the negotiations were always there, but, never to the point of really be taken, for a long time at least, to be taken seriously, and that is something that we would like to conclude, it was more a part of the ballet and not something with more strength to it.

This approach domestically led to deindustrialization, because the United States and European countries especially, Japan as well, have always been our partners in industrialization and industrial investment, manufacturing investment, and high technology investment. This continued to some degree, because we were always the sort of hybrid economy, with some pockets of excellence, but, as a general design, there was a very strong deindustrialization during those times.

Well, corruption, of course, as you know, I do not need to mention a lot about that. It looked like the plan, to paraphrase Woodrow Wilson, was to make Latin America safe for corruption, right? The idea was, "OK, let us build this space here, where no one can come in and where each country and Brazil in our case will bask in the glory of that, the system of certain circles of power and the state-led economy." So, we lost our place in the global value chains that were being built and our partnership with key partners, like the United States, which was totally discontinued, for different reasons, but during those 30 years.

In the Obama years, during the Obama administration, and I followed that closely, at that moment I was working in Washington, the idea emerged, especially from the US side, that the United States and Brazil would become strong partners in the global issues, and that is where we would build our connection from. Especially environment, but also other issues, were considered the key to the partnership, so we would converge there, and from that sort of convergence, the confidence would be back and we would start building new initiatives and the kind of relationship that the Brazilians always wanted, because that is a very important point, we know that, anyone who has been more than a few hours in Brazil, I think, knows that Brazilians love the United States. They love the American way of life, the American way of doing business. There is a strong and very deep connection between the two peoples, who have so much in common: open, dynamic, innovative societies, open to the world, open to diversity. But, for a long time, this did not play out with the government, especially the Brazilian government.

So, during those years, 2008 to 2016, more or less, we thought that we could build this relationship from the global issues down, and the confidence could be restored. But this did not take place. It was not enough to create the roots, the spirit that would lead to a very concrete partnership, because, from the Brazilian side, and I kind of we worked with those issues at that time, at the end of the day, with all the rhetoric, Brazil did not want a solid bilateral partnership in trade, investment or in security issues, among others, because this did not fit with the model that was still there in Brazil, this model of isolation, of keeping the power structure in place, with those gives-and-takes and the corruption in that sort of mechanism. So, lots of hopes were deceived back then.

Since then, we have some attempts to catch up during the last administration in Brazil. But it was a transitional period in Brazil, and of course, elections in the United States, with the coming to power of Donald Trump, but this was not a moment that we really could rebuild, especially because this transitional government in Brazil did not feel it had all the strength that was necessary to go against the current. Because the current in Brazil, the establishment, the foreign policy and to a certain extent foreign trade establishment are basically, let us say, not conducive or they tend to refuse automatically strong partnership with the United States. So, the previous administration wanted to go ahead but did not have the political power to do that.

I think things really started to change after the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration in Brazil, when we really started to restructure all that, with a government that came from an election with all the legitimacy of a very strong electoral victory. And it was not only a question of the Brazil-US relationship, it was a question of our project of transforming Brazil deeply, of transforming Brazil into a modern economy, a market economy, overcoming the old system of not necessarily corruption, criminal corruption, or of that too, unfortunately, but of patronage, and that circulation of economic power according to a political logic, and not according to a market logic, and also other aspects of transformation. But we really saw that we needed the United States as a key partner or maybe the key partner for that transformation. Partner in economic opening and modernization, but also in privatization, not only in the sense of selling state companies, which is underway, I think that is good news for our friends in the US and around the world, the perspective of privatization of the mail, for example, which was announced last week, but it is not only a question of that, is a question of the whole mentality of the economy that we set to with that we are trying to change, to really transform into a country driven by the private sector, driven by private investment and not by public investment.

Because in the previous system, you had state companies that were misused, but also private companies, the champions in some sectors that were employed as tools for the system and not just private companies, even employed to export that sort of scheme to other countries of Latin America. So it is not easy. It is not trivial to change that very ingrained system. And we need a partner of the size and the capacity of the United States.

So one important aspect in that equation is reindustrialization. We lost maybe 30 years, as I said, in being part of the value chains. Today, you cannot be a modern manufacturing country without being part of those chains. Some specific companies managed to, but not because they were, I mean, they were against the current again. And we need to come back to where we were with a new base, I mean, to rebuild the platform for a strong industrial nation. Brazil cannot be, a country this size cannot be a fully-fledged democracy in the way to prosperity, good jobs, good opportunities without a strong manufacturing base. During those previous periods, a very strong relationship was built with China, which is great, and which led to very strong growth in our agriculture and agribusiness sector.

But the industrial manufacturing was basically forgotten. Also, more modern services sectors were basically left out. And what happens is that today, still today, people look at the Brazilian economy and they see it from the angle of trade. And it is OK. China is a great partner, which is true for trade. But if you look at the investment and the whole industrial manufacturing sector, then the US. and European countries as well are the great partner. The US is the number one investor. And then you come with basically all European countries until place 12, 13, 14 as the major investors. So it is a question of, "OK, let us keep what we have in the agribusiness and all that cluster, but let us go back to industrialization." And so that is what we set also to accomplish through much more trade integration with the US, but not only with the US. This was part of a strategy that led us to conclude the EU-Mercosur trade deal, which unfortunately is still not being signed and sent to ratification, but I think this will be the case, but also to enhancing the bid for OECD with very much political support and technical effort, also build a new relationship with Israel, which was basically neglected before, come back to a strong relationship with Japan, another very important industrial and investment partner that had been more or less ignored and open new frontiers with partners like India, with whom we are having a very strategic relationship now just launched the first Brazilian satellite, Brazilian designed and built satellite was launched from India last week, a very symbolic moment for us and the Gulf countries, which were, I mean, kind of were kind of indifferent to now. They are key partners, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and all the six Gulf countries were very much engaged. Just to show that it is not a question of, "OK, we did not like the US and now we like the United States." It is not like that.

It is a whole strategy that is much deeper. That on the economy. But on, let us say, the security side, we want to shake that narco-socialism system away from Latin America. We want to, we need to work together with the large democracies in the region, in the hemisphere, the United States, but also Canada has been a terrific partner, a very good partner in that.

So, we needed to realize, and we started to realize that in order to protect democracy, to promote democracy in the region, and not allowing totalitarian projects to take hold, we also need to fight organized crime because they are basically the same thing. It is basically a criminal network that keeps Maduro in power in Venezuela, for example, but also political power, like the one that Maduro still enjoys, keeps terrorism and crime with bases and, opportunities, so to say, in the region. Unfortunately, organized crime, all those aspects, including terrorism, are alive and growing in the region. Venezuela is the hotbed for all that, although it is not purely Venezuelan. They are threatening democratic systems all across the region.

So, for quite some time and still today, when you talk about this, it is seen as a left versus right situation and it should not be seen that way.

It is not because we read Adam Smith and they read Marx and Angels that we have this problem. It is because you have this whole system that is associated with organized crime, which is threatening our families, which is threatening our security even in Brazil, because they use the same channels of arms trafficking, the same channels of money laundering. So the traditional, let us say, corruption and the more modern organized crime basically share the same network. So today it is not left against right. It is clearly a sort of criminal political system against law and order, on the other side, open economies and real democracy. What we set to try to do.

I am about to finish. I did not think I would take that long with those ideas. But just to give that contrast between what we are trying to do now and before. So, regarding Venezuela, we are starting to work much more closely with the US in diplomatic isolation of the regime in order to bring them seriously to the table, which cannot be a table among equals, it should be a table among a regime which is dictatorial, which tortures people, etc., etc., and the people who want democracy back to Venezuela, but also to investigate their crimes, their connection to organized crime. We had resolutions of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, which means a very strong instrument that has not been used frequently, and we passed resolutions under its umbrella to investigate crimes related to the Venezuelan regime. So, basically, the change is that Brazil was part of the problem and now we are trying to be part of the solution. I think that is very, very clear in the in the region.

And the US is a key actor with all its capacity, political, geopolitical power, economic power, intelligence. I mean, all the crime-fighting capacity that the United States has. At the same time, we need the United States to become stronger in classical defense. Every day the difference between security and defense becomes more and more blurred. It is obvious that we need good police forces, but also defense forces in order to fight this threat network that exists in the region. It would be great if we could separate security and defense, but increasingly, they have to work together. And the military in Brazil, the, let us say, hard power was neglected during many, many years before, maybe consciously, probably consciously, but in order to make Brazil a non-relevant actor in terms of the hard power. And we need soft power, of course, but that kind of security threat, you cannot face it only with soft power, only with the movies and songs, you need hard power for that.

So, so just a few areas, a few key areas where the kind of transformation that we want for Brazil, for the region, passed through, necessarily, a very productive relationship with the United States and how we tried to do that basically by building confidence. So we come back to the beginning, by building confidence again around a common vision. And that is what I think Presidents Bolsonaro and Trump were able to do, they were able to create a framework of confidence and a sense of shared endeavor, shared values among them, which was there already among the peoples, among Brazilian and American people, but was denied, I think, for many years.

So, I mean, for us who work with those issues, the contrast, from the Brazilian point of view, was very strong. Before, we used to, in many cases, refuse to work for our own values as long as the US was together. We did not want to be seen with the US together in the same room, so to say. I personally have seen that sort of thing happening in the previous administration, for example, there was already a good disposition to work for democracy in Venezuela. But I have seen, for example, an OAS resolution that arrived and was very good, very strong on Venezuela. But then when people ask, “Who is cosponsoring? The United States? So we will stay away, OK?” So the sort of image or sentiment was considered stronger than our own values and interests in promoting democracy in that case.

So, since 2019, we started speaking about an alliance, not only about a partnership or a relationship, because that is what we felt we wanted and we still want. Something solid, something for the long run, something that is based not on the daily balance of give-and-take, but on the objectives for what we want for our nations, what we want for our people, our region, for the world. And we achieved many things during the last couple of years, especially in trade, but also in defense and democracy promotion and security. And that is curious because, in Brazil, it is still commonly argued that we did not get a lot in terms of trade during those two years or that there was an imbalance in favor of the US. And we think it is totally the opposite. I should not be saying that, but I think we had the three agreements that you mentioned, of course, are great for both and starts to catch up with the regulatory updating that we need in order to promote strong investment again and investment is coming. But also in other areas like the traditional problem, ethanol, we managed to start at least a meaningful conversation with meaningful advantages for both sides, maybe more for Brazil this time, but that is not what we wanted. We wanted and still want a full-fledged agreement, not only in that area but on everything, full-fledged trade agreements. And we believe that it is totally possible and decisive for us.

But not only bilaterally, we had progress also multilaterally in the WTO. Now Brazil and the US are partnering for meaningful reform of the WTO, one that leads to really establishing a level playing field again in the world economy. Then we have to address the tough issues like state-owned enterprises and industrial subsidies, the agricultural subsidies, of course. And we are very ambitious as Brazil we want to do whatever is there in terms of competitiveness because we are opening our economy otherwise, so we need a level playing field that the WTO can provide and we are side by side with the United States in that effort.

The OECD, the totally decisive support from the US for joining the OECD, which we hope will take place soon, this is also decisive for us, very important. It is a way of anchoring Brazil in this atmosphere, this model of liberal democracy and market economies that we want and that is not, I mean, it is an acquired taste for many Brazilians in a way, although we are convinced that is the way to go. But the gravity force if we leave the rock there, it will roll down the hill all the way back to Statism and to patronage and that sort of system. So we have to keep going until we can consolidate this new model in Brazil because we feel we belong there. We belong together with the US and other democracies in the model that the OECD stands for.

I said I was about to finish and I really am, but I think that is an important thing to say as well regarding Brazil specifically and why were there in this drive towards transformation, that requires this transformation in the Brazil-US relationship, because Brazil today is built on what we call, for lack of a better name, the liberal-conservative alliance, which sounds strange for American ears because of the way the words liberal and conservative are used. But that is where we are at, a liberal approach to the economy to build a private and market-oriented economy, but on top of a society that is built on trust, on strong communities, strong families, on individual responsibility, on less State and more civil society, so this vision of conservatism, that is the way you can describe a society that is built from the bottom up and not from the top down. So this is the kind of amalgam that we see in Brazil today taking shape. All those that we can call conservative values, the value of work, of individual creativity, individual freedom, I think freedom is the concept that unites the liberal and the conservative approaches, all the, let us say, the conservative and liberal values converge there and converge towards a market economy in terms of the economy, but also in a society that is solid and shaped on shared values in terms of the, let us say, the non-economic aspects of social life. And that is where we want to meet the United States from. And that is where I think we are, we are now.

I would like to say that, to talk a lot about the past or the recent past. But where we are now, we are the same place that we were, I mean, nothing changed for us on January the 20th regarding what we want to accomplish and the importance of the partnership with the United States. We think it makes total sense. It makes total sense from the material, the concrete trade and economic interests, but also our vision of the world, the way we need to work together for democracy, against organized crime, against threats to democracy in the region, maybe in the world as well. So our determination to have a strong alliance is there because it is rooted in what Brazilians feel, is rooted in this sentiment that I call the liberal-conservative alliance in Brazil. It is rooted in history and interests and concrete interests and this drive to transformation. I think we are together and we will be together with everything with the Biden administration as before because it is the natural thing to do in our view.

We are absolutely together in climate that is very important to say, conversations that myself and Ricardo Salles, the Minister of the Environment, had with John Kerry and the technical work that is going on after that shows that we can work as the key partners towards not only a successful COP-26 but fully implementing of climate instruments and climate agreements. And there is no philosophical difference there. There are differences in approaches, how to do this, how to do that. And overall the disposition for cooperation regarding deforestation, for example, is totally there. The disposition for meaningful investment in sustainable development in the Amazon, for example, seems to be totally there. So something that was regarded as maybe an impediment to the continuation of the drive towards an alliance, I mean, it is totally out of the way now. We are working together also in that area.

So, as you see, I am very upbeat about what we can do. And just to finish, I am only sad because some currents still want to keep Brazil and the US away from each other. Currents in Brazil especially, which know what this means for the transformation that we undertook to do in Brazil and know how much weaker this transformation will be without a strong Brazil-US partnership and how much easier it would be to go back to the older system, which was, I think, bad for everyone, for economic development, but also for democracy and not only in Brazil, but in the whole region.

But I think these people are a minority. Those currents are a minority. And what we hope is that everyone who looks at this in good faith, and I think it is everyone here, obviously, can see the enormous value of this alliance. I use that word again, in permanent construction and we see that it can totally be accomplished.

Thank you. So sorry for speaking more than I was supposed to. Thank you.

Susan Segal: Thank you very much, Minister Araújo. And I have at least 20-some questions that have come in as you spoke. And so I am going to try to bundle them. I think you have spoken to a lot of them, but we have a number of questions that are very specific about how President Bolsonaro and President Biden can build their relationship first, and is a possible bilateral meeting on the table. Maybe if you could just address that in two minutes and then we will go on to another set of questions around the Amazon, the climate, etc.

Minister Ernesto Araújo: Sure, sure. We have high hopes for that. First of all, they have the same initials, right, J.B. and J.B...

Susan Segal: I had not thought about it, but you are absolutely right.

Minister Ernesto Araújo: I think the relationship can be very good at the presidential level. It is very important that it be very good. I think we have, let us say, the same approach to the fundamental things that are there. I think that was reflected in the letter that President Bolsonaro sent to President Biden and by the letter that President Biden sent to President Bolsonaro this week. Those key issues, those pillars of this building are there, democracy, prosperity, and values, so to say. This is more, let us say, difficult to define, but it is totally there, some nuances that we recognize in the administration regarding climate, for example, which was not that much of an issue in the previous administration. But I think they come from the same approach and that we are converging to that maybe with different instruments. But the values are there. And I think they are both practical-oriented leaders and leaders that want to deliver something strong, not only to talk about stuff, leaders who are not afraid of taking tough decisions, as we have seen in Brazil for two years and in the US now for a little over one month. And in our case, we clearly need tough decisions in order to really transform the system. And as I said it, especially at the beginning, it was going against the current to build this partnership. So we see that sort of political courage and enormous public support, I think, on both sides for both presidents. They both come from, let us say, record numbers in terms of, that is another coincidence, in terms of votes in their respective elections. So I see only a good perspective in, let us say, the personal interaction.

Susan Segal: So thank you very much. So, following on, are you doing anything specific? Is the Brazilian government doing anything to remove the obstacles in relation not just with the Biden administration, but with the European nations created by Amazon's deforestation? And I will go one step further because there is also another really interesting question, which is what are your expectations? What are Brazil's expectations for the April 22 leaders' climate summit? And what sort of result would constitute a win, in your opinion?

Minister Ernesto Araújo: Sure, sure, yes. With Europeans, we have been having this discussion since we finished the negotiations of our EU agreements in 2019. The agreement already has lots of instruments that reinforce environmental protection and environmental commitments. But we realize that the European side wants to see, let us say, more reaffirming of those commitments. And we are ready to work towards something. We do not want to reopen the agreement because then we would have to renegotiate everything from steel to cheese. And this would be impossible. And especially we are open and with any partner to show that a lot of misinformation about the Brazilian environment, about our agriculture, about the connection between agriculture and deforestation in Brazil, which is basically nonexistent. I mean, it is hard to, but that is basically the fact, of course, there is illegal deforestation that we have been combating, but in terms of, I mean, there is no, let us say, incentive and no agreement, we would not any agreement that would mean incentives for the deforestation in terms of agricultural production. Our agriculture is growing because of technology. It is growing because of productivity and not because of the incorporation of new areas. And it has immense potential to grow on top of technology from our current agricultural area. Basically, only one-third is today using the most up-to-date techniques and technology. So you can imagine what Brazil can accomplish without any sort of deforestation, any incorporation of land. We could, I do not know, double, treble the production with the incorporation of technology. That is the sort of thing we need to put on the table because we can not only show that that is the case in Brazil but also contributes to better agricultural practices in other countries. We can contribute or, let us say, the energy matrix in Brazil, not directly, but our experience with the energy matrix, which is 70 percent renewable for electricity, for transportation a little bit less, but for electricity, it is 70-something percent, and it is renewable. So we have a lot to show. Not only that we are facing our problems, but that we have solutions to present worldwide. And that is what we can do with the US, with European countries, and others. Directly with the United States, those conversations with Secretary Kerry's team, I mean, this is pointing very well and then we go towards not only COP-26 but towards the Earth Summit in April. We do think we can arrive there with something significant. From our perspective, what is very important is everything that has to do with financing, right, we want, we need to see more commitment from the richer nations, from developed countries, in terms of implementing the financial commitments of the Paris Agreement. As you know, the Kyoto agreement, I mean, those countries fell short of financial commitments under the Kyoto agreement. And now we need, ideally, we would like to to see those commitments fulfilled and the new ones, under the Paris Agreement, fulfilled. But we think we can get there and if we get there we have the best of the worlds because you have all the commitments for protection, the contribution that we can give in terms of technology, and also green investment. That is what we need the most. In Brazil, for the Amazon region, it is not only a question of curbing illegal deforestation and eliminating illegal forestation. For that, you need, I mean, you need not only policy operations, but investment to create green jobs, to create opportunities for those people. Twenty-three million people live in the Brazilian Amazon. Those people need jobs. They are mostly poor and they do not have decent opportunities. So if we can package all of that together, it is really a total game-changer.

Susan Segal: Thank you very much. It is a win-win for all, I would guess. So we have four more minutes. I have got 20 questions, but is it going to end. But I am going to ask you this one. And if we have to, I am going to ask you for another meeting in another couple of months to continue. So Brazil has an important role as one of the largest democracies and as a leader and role model country for peace. We are seeing more cyber threats and nation-state attacks. Initiatives such as the Paris Call for Peace and Security in Cyberspace is an important multi-stakeholder approach to create a trust and safer digital environment for countries and citizens. Do you think Brazil is going to join this principles initiative?

Minister Ernesto Araújo: Yes, I mean, we have to work in that direction. Cybersecurity is obviously part of those threats networks that we see, that we have to face. But it is I think it is a part of the new cyber threat world. Of course, we have state actors, but also non-state actors that can be the source of insecurity in that regard, a threat. And we do see, of course, the potential of the new technologies, of the new economy, especially now, with the pandemic, we are realizing that the digital economy is, I mean, it is totally there. It is maybe more than half our economy now is dependent on digital. So we have to be even more cautious. It is not only, I think, the classical cyber threat, you know, a state actor threatening another state actor. It is the whole gamut of threats that also have to do with, I mean, the exposition, people are so much exposed now to being hacked and so much more so having all their life hackable, so to say. And with the Internet of Things companies, everyone will be exposed to, basically, not only the big power structures in the country but everyone, their fridge, their car can be subject to that. That is why we need to work with all the international community to find a way, which is not easy, you are right, to not curtail technological development, but to do it inside a democracy, inside democratic principles and values.

Susan Segal: So I have one last question because in the days of COVID we cannot go without asking at least one question on COVID. And so they are questioning Brazil's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the current struggles with the announced variant and others. So what could go wrong? How can you get Brazil vaccinated and on the path to normalcy, let us say, and so what is your vision, and what is President Bolsonaro's vision for this, please?

Minister Ernesto Araújo: That is very good. And we are having a meeting this morning about those issues. I mean, we are almost daily discussing the pandemic and the strategy, almost every agency is involved. So we are taking it tremendously seriously. And we see regarding the number of cases and the number of deaths, that so tragically has gone up but yet apparently it is normal after the start of strong vaccination that the cases go up in a country and then they abruptly drop. We might be two or three weeks away from that point if you take the same curve in other countries where cases would start to fall. Vaccination is gaining speed, of course, you would like it to be much quicker, but it is slow compared to the US or Israel. But if you compare it to Europe, it is not that slow. But the European countries are a little bit more than five percent in terms of the total population vaccinated. In Brazil, we are about four percent of all the logistical challenges that we have. But the numbers will go very simply up until, we are pretty sure, in the next few weeks also with vaccination. And, I mean, the health system is, of course, under stress, but it is holding fine, the intensive care units, there is some shortage in some states but overall, the system is holding fine and people want to basically go first. People want to be vaccinated, but also people wanting to go back to work. There is strong popular pressure for not having lock-downs or for any lock-downs that have been decreed by some state governors. And I think with this mix of the natural fall in the number of cases, even of the new variety, which seems to be following the same curve, vaccination, and, let us say, in the drive towards a normal life again this year, economic growth will take hold again. People will start to feel confident again. To come back to the beginning, we also need to have confidence among people. But the popular sentiment is that we need to go back to work so soon as we have a vaccination really showing it is making the cases decrease, things will look much better, I am pretty sure, in a few weeks.

Susan Segal: Thank you, Mr. Minister, our time is up, in fact, we are two minutes late, I still have so many questions, so I am going to have to invite you back.

Minister Ernesto Araújo: Yes, yes, by all means. I promise to start by answering the question next time.

Susan Segal: If you like it, we will start with an interview. So I want to thank you for your very valuable time. We agree that there is just so much that Brazil and the United States can do together. We have common values. We are continental countries with huge resources, and together we can do so much in terms of leadership in the hemisphere and the world. And frankly, I am a big believer, as I know you are, that this hemisphere can be the most competitive hemisphere in the world if we all work together. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your work. And good luck on your trip to Israel, which has much promise as you were telling me about. So thank you. And be safe.