Morgan Stanley Joins U.S. Push to Join Brazil Building Boom
Morgan Stanley Joins U.S. Push to Join Brazil Building Boom
As the U.S. embarks on a trade mission in Latin America, the focus of investing on Brazil’s building boom may ease trade disputes between both countries, suggests AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth.
The Obama administration is setting out to help exporters get in on Brazil’s building boom even as it spars with the region’s biggest economy over high tariffs, rules favoring local companies and monetary policies.
Brazil will be the focus of a U.S. trade mission for 20 companies including Morgan Stanley, CNH Global (CNH) NV, Textron Inc. (TXT)’s Cessna Aircraft Co. and OSI Systems Inc. (OSIS)’s Rapiscan, which makes airport screening devices. The delegation also will visit Colombia and Panama, where commercial investment is on the rise.
“They’re going to be spending big bucks on their infrastructure improvement,” Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, who has led the agency for 11 months, said in a phone interview. The May 12-18 mission is her first as agency head.
The U.S. last year exported $43.7 billion in goods to Brazil, a 68 percent increase since 2009, when President Barack Obama took office and the global economic crisis depressed global exports. U.S. merchandise sent to Colombia increased 73 percent, to $16.4 billion, and to Panama jumped 131 percent, to $9.9 billion, during the same period….
While the U.S. has trade pacts with Panama, Colombia and nine other Latin American nations, Brazil -- which accounts for about 45 percent of the region’s output -- isn’t among them. The nation was part of a bloc in 2005 that was at odds with the U.S. over a Free Trade Area of the Americas, leading to a collapse of the talks.
“Whether or not we have a trade agreement, you can’t ignore” Brazil because of its size, Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas and head of its Washington office, said in a phone interview. While policies favoring local producers have slowed investment in some industries, such as oil and gas, the focus on infrastructure may ease some of the bottlenecks hindering trade, he said….
