STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY

STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY

Ana Paula Arendt*

The U.S President sent a letter to the Brazilian President announcing tariffs of 50%, complaining of a criminal process moved against the former Brazilian president. However, the charges in the Brazilian Supreme Court are held by testimonies of military people who were at his command: an attempt of a coup d’état. Brazilian military officers only demand a written order from their superiors when they receive illegal orders; and that’s what his Colonel Coordinator of Logistics in Goiânia said: that he demanded the former Brazilian president a signed written order. Also the Commander of the Brazilian Army and of the Air Force said the former Brazilian president presented them a proposal of coup d’état. And his aide-de-camp confessed that. Members of his government: and not his opponents. 

Imposing tariffs will not change that. But the point is: tariffs are never paid by governors, nor by companies. They generally weigh heavily on consumers, and even more so on lower-income families. When a government raises import taxes to stay in power, to make its friends unaccountable, or to accumulate even more power, it makes products more expensive for its own consumers.

Tariffs worked well in the U.S. when there was no industry. But as the U.S. does now, and when the imports raise their prices, the national industry will raise them as well to seize the gap. Although they might they might raise only up to 40%, to keep competitive, American families’ income will suffer. And there’s no long term objective about reinforcing investments in national industry: because nobody in sane conscience shall be willing to invest in a country where you sleep one night and wake in the other day with a tax cutting 50% of your income. That is the very opposite of what the United States has always been, a safe port for contracts and investments.  

In a healthy democracy, consumers are also voters; thus, governments that impose this additional burden on consumers lose their appeal. Therefore, everything would indicate that all that's needed is patience and waiting.

But now: is the U.S. President refusing that a former president, accused of attempted coup d'état, should be tried, under due process of Law? Why? And the former Brazilian president hasn't even been convicted yet. The evidence is being evaluated, and in a criminal indictment, he can only be arrested if there is no doubt. What the American president seems to be saying, before conviction, is that he has no doubt that his friend is guilty… This way he is hardly helping his friend to become a better person, and he is even harming his legal defence with that certainty, as the Brazilian legal system is based  on Roman law.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize of Economics, is absolutely right when he says that the U.S trade represents only 2% of Brazil’s GDP, and that no tariff will change the resolve of a more than 200 million people’s country to make their politicians more accountable. But those Brazilian industries will suffer. More than 100,000 Brazilian families will live in the anguish of uncertainty; in exchange for the certainty of irresponsible politicians. How do you call people who behave like that, making everybody’s lives worse - and for the sake of reaching nothing ? 

What rests clear in this situation of taxation against Brazil is that a country should never fight for democracy alone: it must fight for the value of voting, for the education of its citizens, and for democracy in other countries as well, in places where those in power seek to be above the law and exercise oppression.

In this case of the malign use of tariffs for political purposes, it is not just a matter of condemning the attempted interference through diplomatic channels. We are seeing a brotherly people being subjugated by an immense state military structure that has allowed itself to be dominated by a political coalition focused on the interests of a few wealthy people, resulting in economic regression.

There seems to be a blindfold covering the American people's eyes, as they still do not realize the income of the poorest families decline, following submissively billionaires as models of success. Deep down, a grave sin lies behind this: the idolatry of money. I'm not speaking against millionaires: it's proven, by data, that where there are more millionaires, all families enjoy better living conditions. But assuming that billionaires are superior human beings and that they should have political power because of their wealth is a mistake. They are excessively rich because they concentrate all the opportunities: due to distortions in the economic system impeding distribution of wealth. It is up to every conscious citizen to combat these distortions: This is what the prophet Ezekiel preached (18:5): to be appalled by the idols of Israel, chief among them money.

It is therefore a matter of encouraging political groups friendly to American families who are paying the price; freeing the people who care about them from hopelessness and indifference; and defending the strengthening of their democracy. We truly need to awaken from this comfortable torpor and visit the Founding Fathers.

The American people need to remember that they must defend their own income, especially when the abusive raises are only a few cents.

* Ana Paula Arendt is a Brazilian political scientist, poet and diplomat. Read more at www.anapaulaarendt.com . 

Image: Thomas Jefferson, by Rembrandt Peale, 1800.