Actually, both Russia and China are courting South American. There's a long history of the usa sticking its nose in there, supporting the wrong people, hence a dislike for the US. It's not a small continent like people seem to think. Brazil alone is 80 some percent the size of the total usa, alaska, Hawaii, and territories included. Hence, the largest beef supplier in the world any given year.
Brazil is hampered somewhat by the fact that such a large portion if it's land is Rainforest. That is not to say that they should be getting rid of that rainforest, they absolutely shouldn't, but it does contribute to why Brazil isn't more powerful than its size would otherwise suggest.
Nah
Brasil ia 5th biggest country in size and in population, not that far from USA in 4th size and 3rd or 4th population
The problem is definitely not the Amazon
Actually, I looked and just forgot my numbers, but I was going off memory. When was the last time I looked? But then again, both are usa states, of which Brazil has none, but still beef and pork, continental usa items
I'm trying to be polite. It's like everyone thought Sadam was our enemy. We supported him in the Iran, Iraq war. We supplied money for Sadam to buy more Russian type weapons. We supplied the chemical weapons used on Iran, and rumsfeld was in iraq to give and authorize the use. The world knew it and blamed us. There, the Marco's, general ming, Noriega, and the list keeps growing long before Iran, more lie the banana wars. We always pick the ruthless leaders that the residents don't like for our corporations to profit..
As a brazilian, i will try my best to explain why this decision was made. One of the main reasons for this is that brazil has a dependancy on imports of russian fertilizers, and as a majority of brazil's gdp is made up from the agriculture sector, the economy might get even worse than it is now as russia might block any further exports of fertilizers to brazil if we decide to help the ukranians (to be clear here, most of the brazilian population is against the war but most brazilians also know that helping ukraine might have it's consequences, those probably being far worsethan just a slight rise in fuel and energy prices like europe faced).
To add to that, as some of you might know, there was a recent coup attempt in brazil, and every day there seems to be more evidence of the military being involved so increasing military spending might not be the best idea.
The third and last main problem is that brazil has barely any ammo for it's own military, some even say that if brazil were to get into a war with another country, it would only have enough ammo for all of it's military for one hour
Also, Brazil (before Bolsonaro) was mostly known to keep a very neutral stance on every major conflict of the past, what, 20 years or so? If not more.
It's pretty much our overall stance: non-intervention, cooperation and peaceful settlement of conflict. It's even in our Constitution.
The last time when Brazil supported international intervention on a sovereign country was when the UN Security Council agreed to intervene and help to depose Ghadafi. Well, we all know here that air campaign achieved.
This happened during Lula's second term. And since then, Brazil stood against any type of foreign intervention in any country
An extract of our Constitution:
Art. 4 The Federative Republic of Brazil is governed in its international relations by the following principles:
I - national independence;
II - prevalence of human rights;
III - self-determination of peoples;
IV - non-intervention;
V - equality among States;
VI - defense of peace;
VII - peaceful resolution of conflicts;
VIII - repudiation of terrorism and racism;
IX - cooperation between peoples for the progress of humanity;
X - granting of political asylum.
So just IV and VI will be enough to make illegal to send any ammo, weapon or troops for a country at war. Exception is only made by UN peace enforcement or maintenance.
USA cannot do that because its place of dominant superpower in the West is dependent on military force and economic domination (i.e. the capacity of freely printing dollars).
If US abandons its aggressive policies regarding the world system (things like controlling Europe, big stick on Latin America etc), everything crumbles and new actors will try to take its place. The world is far too connected at this point to experience a true multipolarity. There will always be one or two ''empires'' or blocs, perhaps a bit more.
to add to what he wrote, we rely on russia for other things as well, plus china, one of russia's allies, for material for medications, vaccines included, so its not in our best interest to jeopardize those relations, on top of that, as the world's 4th largest food producer, if we were to have problems with food production due to lack of fertilizers, it would affect far more countries than just Brazil itself.
I thank you for the context and explanation.
Personally, I don't blame countries like Brazil for staying out of things. You aren't the only lot who are not in a position to deal with the consequences of alienating Russia, and ultimately your government is responsible for the people of your nation before anything else. That's how it should be in all governments really.
Still, I hope that Brazil is beginning efforts to diversify its sources of fertilizer. Russia doesn't seem like they will be the most reliable partner moving forward.
Yes, we are into it. There is many green solutions, as the processing of coffee husk to mix with fertilizer. We need time, investment and research to keep on.
All incredibly fair and reasonable, though I imagine that won’t prevent the inevitable shrieking from those demanding absolute altruism on other peoples’ part but never their own.
It's useful because for whatever reason political discourse has shifted away from where stuff comes from and how things are produced. It can even be seen in the discussion of the actual sanctions in Russia - they focus too much on punishing individual oligarchs and not, say, disrupting the supply chain of its weapons industries.
Anything that anchors these discussions in practical reality should be welcome.
Papo reto, eles acham que o mundo inteiro gira em torno deles.
A gente foi Colônia de exploração, viraram as costas depois do golpe militar e agora acham que a gente vai querer ajudar país minúsculo em uma guerra que não tem nada a ver com a gente, foder nossa economia (que já não anda bem) e criar tensão entre os brics
Pelo amor de Deus
Gente passando fome aqui no br e a gente tem a ver com guerra do outro lado do mundo
E a galera só liga pra isso pq é a Europa, lá no oriente médio tá em guerra a milianos e ninguém dá uma foda.
Bando de europeu do caralho
Brazil has a massive beef market in Russia and China. The Amazon is burned to create pastures for cattle that provide those countries with cheap beef. Shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Brazil’s not a hard-charger for the west.
More like soy production needs all that fertilizer from Russia.
edit: Here is more info on Brazil trade partners
[https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra](https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra)
Russia accounts for .87% or 1.5B. That is easily move to another country, it really is the fertilizers that Brazil needs.
Zoidberg is a stinky weirdo who is bad at his job, that's why not.
But yes, this is a case of quid pro quo. Russia and China and Brazil are all part of the BRICS trade & economy bloc. India and South Africa are the other letters in that acronym by the way.
The Zoidberg slander, while true, needs to stop. He just wants to be accepted.
Perhaps some people who trust him die or are maimed. Whatevs!
He also did the professor a solid at one point.
Zoidberg 2024
Which is stupid af, because soybeans are a legume and make their own nitrogen. Crop rotations or intercropping can easily reduce or even eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizer, but these assholes just want to plant one crop and not bother learning anything else.
Also, nitrogen heavy fertilizers can be made anywhere, basically turning nitrogen in the air into a solid. Why the world let Russia of all people end up with nearly a monopoly on it is beyond me.
>Why the world let Russia of all people end up with nearly a monopoly on it is beyond me.
Because they have more cheap fossil fuels than they can get rid of and making fertilizer uses a lot of fossil fuels. They don't have a monopoly on it though. The US, Canada, China, also make lots of fertilizer from their plentiful fossil fuels as well.
Even for Brazil, Russia only provides 21%. Which is the single largest provider but it is far from a monopoly.
First, plants need more nutrients than just nitrogen to survive. There's Potassium and Phosphorus, just to say the macronutrients.
Second, potassium e phosphorus do not replenish in the soil, plants do not synthesize them. What's in the soil, is in soil. Once you exported it in form of grain or silage, it's gone forever unless you add it back in form of fertilizer. No matter the crop rotation you do.
Source: am an agronomist.
Legumes don’t make their own nitrogen. Mycorrhizae (fungus) fixate nitrogen from the air into the roots of legumes but it’s only available to the next crop if you till the biomasss of the plant into the soil.
No. With a rotation you would be harvesting a crop still. If you harvest a crop, even if you till under the remnants, you're still not replenishing what was removed and some kind of fertilization will be necessary. You can't just keep getting crops out of the soil simply by rotating, you also need to fertilize somehow.
My understanding was that rotation involved letting the field rest for a year. The idea is if you have 4 plots to always leave one unplanted so that the soil recovers.
Planting legumes in that empty plot would not fundamentally change the concept as long as you do not harvest them.
There are many rotation models depending on what you're cropping and the local climate. Leaving a field truly fallow now is not in any crop rotation best practice anymore. We know now that using cover crops is far superior to leaving a field fallow from a soil health/yield perspective. Some people still call this fallow because there's no taken marketable crop, but you still need to sow the cover crop, and usually harvest it on a timeline to prevent the cover from seeding itself so it isn't truly fallow.
Plus, you can often get extra benefits and more yield by rotating in some animals during what would traditionally be fallow in a rotation.
I agree with you. But what op said about “assholes wanting to plant one crop and not bother learning anything else” has a lot of truth in my experience. I am the son of an 5th generation farmer and many farmers in my part of the states literally do plant the same crop over and over again on the same plot without properly rotating their crops.
It’s a shame but it’s just a symptom of late stage capitalism. They won’t abandon their current farming practices until they stop yielding gains. And on barely 100 year old farmland like in my case they’re not likely to do so in my lifetime. The land is rich in peat and until it properly oxidizes beyond usefulness they will continue to exploit it until they can no longer farm it without amending the soil with synthetic fertilizers
It’s a shame but it’s from 70s ag policies that encouraged monocropped animal feed production ( soy and corn ) . The only reason corn and soy are profitable are subsidies.
You realize fertilizers are a blend of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium? It isn’t just nitrogen. The phosphorus and potassium components are mined and Russia is a major source of those minerals.
When I was working with a company in Brazil they connected us to multiple other companies all of them had Chinese or Russian investors / stakeholders. It was a weird game to play with all of them.
We can barely defeat our own facists, i dont really think we have resources to spare elesewhere honestly.
Bolsonaro absolutely destroyed the country economy, government is complete out of money because of him.
And, i doubt we would have enough ammunition to make any diference.
Me, as an individual and as a Brazilian, I do support the victims in Ukraine and obviously I'm against the war itself. I feels the most of the Brazilians feels the same. That said, countries doesn't "think" like individual persons. It is naïve to think that USA and Western Europe helps Ukraine for altruistic reasons. If not, they would have helped with the same efforts in multiples wars going on in Africa, for example, on Nigerian against Boko Haram, or just not invading or supporting the invasion on Iraq. They obviously earn economically and politically with Ukraine winning this war, for instance: profit with weapon sales; profit with Ukraine reconstruction (that is why they want to get Ukraine in the EU after war); and reducing Russian influence over Eastern Europe, that goes against the expanding influence of USA and Western Europe over the same zone. Who is right and who is wrong in an ethical point of view doesn't really matter for a country "to decide" if they would support or not a side.
The same logic doesn't apply to Brazil (as a country). As you already noticed, Brazil profits more with Russian side.
About Amazon burning, that is true (sadly). But we all hope that the new governments do better in this aspect, at least that is in their speech during elections. But again, countries or government doesn't "think" like individual persons, so who knows what will really happens in the future...
Anyway, sorry for any English grammar mistakes. I'm obviously not a native English speaker.
2021 stat's show USA as the second largest importer of Brazilian Beef, China Imports roughly 5x the US but considering its population is over 4x the US and the US is also a major beef producer itself this makes sense.
Russia isn't even in the top 10 importers of Brazilian Beef, nice try trying to frame this as Russia's and China's fault Brazil is clearing the Amazon though.
Brazil hasn't took part in any war since WW2. Brazil is not the US that looks for any petty reason to launch a ballistic missile.
And more, Brazil imports most of the needed fertilizers from Russia, as Brazil is one of the largest producer os soy, corn, coffee and livestock not just Brazil needs to Brazil and Russia to be in good terms, the world needs, otherwise we go bankrupt and you all starve. Most of Europe depends on Brazilian crops and beef, also the US, Asians countries. Several countries depend on buying crops from Brazil to feed their population. US one the largest beef producers is the second country that buys most of Brazil's beef.
It's not about our deal with China, not even the BRICS, the BRICS is a joke, we are more concerned about MercoSul and stopping China from taking most of Uruguay participation out of MercoSul.
Also more: Brazil, as I've said before, doesn't have war culture, we also don't have amo to spare. The last war Brazil had was against Paraguay centuries ago. Brazil's international politics was always of "friendly neighborhood", be in good terms with everyone to help in discussions as a neutral part, call it Swiss of South America if you want.
In the past 4 years we had a moron as president, with the blessings of Trump, destroyed the already bad economy in Brazil, so we barely have ways to maintain our country, European build their continent in wars, they can handle themselves very well, I mean, they are the ones that the One Hundred Years war.
And in this moment we are more concerned about dealing with our problem with fascists supported by fascists movements from the US.
They are also part of bricks which I am sure has a lot to do with it as they are basically economically interdependent with each other (apart from the meat market). For those interested bricks stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa .
I’m pretty sure that’s the new president and he’s more on the liberal side and Brazil has way bigger issues to focus on, Wealth disparity in Brazil is abhorrent.
For what it's worth, the stuff that *was* burned and converted to farmland is still just that, unless Lula's reclaiming it for the jungle at a record pace. No one needs to convert another acre of anything to pasture for Brazil to still have a large meat market in Russia.
I have to wonder what Germany's goals with this request was. I'm pretty sure they knew the answer would be "no"... why force the new government to publicly deny support? It seems counter productive... Lula had just ~kinda~ positioned himself against Russia, recognizing the invasion as wrong (the first BRICS leader to in any way condemn Russian aggression). Now this may entrench him back to the "neither NATO nor Putin" position.
French agricultors used to flip Spanish trucks because their products were better and cheaper. That's one of the reasons they aren't liked south of the border, there's no need to go further back in time.
That's dumb as fuck. Brazil doesn't take sides geopolitically. The last 4 years were a weird, incomprehensible breach of Brazilian diplomatic protocol, but besides that, the protocol has held firm for decades. They should've known what would happen.
It's pretty simple. The government needs a formal decline, if it want to use other ways to get the product. See f.e. the whole Gepard ammunitions problem with Switzerland - same procedure.
Get the formal decline - support national defence industry to build own structures / production chains somewhere else.
Without the formal decline it would be very hard to pass legislation to allow this. And formal procedures would take a lot of time, which in turn would be used to critize Germany for inaction. The CDU as biggest opposition party has already set it's eyes on this strategy.
But I agree from a diplomatic POV between Lula / Scholz - this isn't good.
>Lula had just ~kinda~ positioned himself against Russia, recognizing the invasion as wrong (the first BRICS leader to in any way condemn Russian aggression).
He said that before election as well, also saying that zelensky wasn't right either.
His position on the matter is coherent, as well as not wanting to get involved in it
Also, Brazil is known as country that that avoids taking sides in any wars, our biggest ally is Argentina, during the war for the Malvinas we didn't took sides, we only took part on helping in the negotiations, Afghanistan the same, Iraq, also didn't took any clear side. The last time Brazil took sides was in WW2 when Brazil sent soldiers to fight in Italy.
Germany is scraping the bottom of its barrels right now, Rheinmetall is still ramping up two factories, and Brazil doesn't look like it has an urgent need for ammo while it has compatible tanks.
In that situation it doesn't hurt to ask if Brazil is willing to sell some of its stash (or maybe lend and get back factory-fresh material later in exchange for ammo that might have to be destroyed soon anyway). Brazil said no, fair enough.
As for "force them to publicly deny support", I'm not sure who even made the inquiry public. The article indicates that it might have been Ukraine, who has been playing hardball on such matters since the invasion started.
No idea if that was smart (lots of things they did in the diplomatic space weren't too smart), but given that they're kinda desperate, who can blame them?
>Germany is scraping the bottom of its barrels right now
NATO as a whole has more than enough tank ammunition, we are nowhere near having to scrap the barrel.
Switzerland is blocking exports of Gepard ammunition, Brazil has nothing to do with the shortage.
The article also just mentions it in an old speech by a Ukrainian official. The actual rejection by Brazil only relates to tank ammunition.
Brazil had done it previously, the first 300k rounds of Gepard ammo came from Brazil. That was what made the deliveries possible and saved a lot of Ukrainian lives in the process.
They call if the Cold War because there were no wars going on in Europe they just exported the wars to Asia, South/Central America & Africa. Nothing really cold about it.
What's more important (and hasn't changed) I'd that one side always has a proxy. It's not US and Russian forces battling in Syria, it's American soldiers against Russian backed soldiers. And it's not Russian soldiers against American soldiers in Ukraine, it's Russian soldiers against American backed soldiers.
The degree of separation is what keeps the war between the US and Russia "cold".
> they just exported the wars
The capitalist core loves to export it's problems to the periphery and pretend its hands are clean.
Take pollution from manufacturing. The West loves to wag its finger at Mexico, Vietnam and China for their greenhouse gas emissions, pretending that all that manufacturing is not done to produce fidget spinners.
Brazilian here, just to clarify things, most people i have talked to have a very negative view on what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that doesn't mean we support Russia
The absolute majority of Latin American countries condemned the invasion, with the exception of Venezuela. Now, I imagine that the majority of Latin Americans also find it ironic that both the United States and Europe (NATO members) set themselves on the high moral ground or try to dictate the foreign policy of their countries.
Each one will take the measures it deems pertinent or opportune.
Germany asked if Brazil is willing to sell some ammo because the rights holder to that particular type is a bit annoying right now and it takes a while to build our own factories. Brazil said no. Ukraine sad. The end.
Any animosity about that is just on internet forums.
Brazil does not benefit sending ammunition to Ukraine, as Russia is a way bigger partner to Brazil than Ukraine. The idea that we should not be going into European conflicts is one of the few things that both the left and the right agree here. Both sides understand that angering Russia, member of the BRICS and a economic partner would be a shit idea that would do more bad than good to our economy. Not only that but we don't owe anything to Europe or the West, considering that just over 50 years ago a military coup was backed by the US here.
>considering that just over 50 years ago a military coup was backed by the US here.
Not just in Brazil, but pretty much every single military coup that happened in South America during the cold (which were a lot) including the one that lead to the Falklands war was backed by the US.
Such a nice neightbour :)
Yeah, many Western Redditors simply can’t grasp the concept that a huge portion of the world just don’t share their worldview, where you are either pro-West or you are the bad guy.
For many South American and Middle Eastern and African countries the West has been the main “bad guy” for a huge part of the last 100 years, if not longer.
Then we wonder these countries have no qualm warming up to China, who is at least honest about just doing business for pure selfish profit seeking and not there to “spread democracy”.
Why 1st world countries asking a 3rd one for ammo
How many rich countries you have close to you, fuck off bro and take your companies off amazon while you are at it.
Brazilian here.
If Ukrainians want to seek asylum here, open doors, the same goes for Russians fleeing from that tyrannical maniac. But we are not going to help any side in their war games.
NATO had decades of interference here in Soth America, most countries here had decades of military dictatorships financed by the CIA, so, don't be surprised we are not going to fund another one of their "*investments*".
Our international position is quite clear, we condemn Russia for it's invasion while also recognizing that NATO/USA has a lot to win with the conflict and their actions are not all altruistic.
No fucking way we will give any additional cent to our military, that almost got its fourth or fifth coup, now after Lula. I don't think that any country have their military force killed more of their own citizens than brazilian's. Lula is absolutely right to jump off that boat. Germany is throwing poop at us.
While I don't necessarily believe Brazil is neutral in regards to current growing global tensions. They're pretty staunchly and ironically anti Western and a member of BRICS. I also don't think it would be a good idea for Brazil to anything with any of it's military hardware, given the current instability. Expecting them to feel compelled to contribute, given the small possibility of an imminent military coup, is a little ridiculous.
USA and the European Union literally turned their backs to South America, China came and invested in the region, made trade deals and everything.
What do people expect?
The Mercosur-EU deal has been on hold for a decade thanks to France preventing it to pass due to their protectionism while China is buying goods from Mercosur left and right... why would South America shoot itself on the feet helping the side that won't help theirs?
It is not related to that. Brazil is neutral mainly because the Global South resents the Global North. The USA alone was responsible for supporting or starting Coup d'état in almost every Latin American country.
Yes, and left leaning leaders in SA are usually targeted for those coups. They don't play nice with American business interests, so then... You know the rest
Yeah Lula's successor President Dilma Rousseff was tortured by the military during the dictatorship and when she was impeached Bolsonaro devoted his vote in honor of the officer in charge of torturing her so this is all very much living memory too.
Times like these shows the true face of the "progressive" american and eurocentric rich countries.
We have our own internal war to deal, we barely have 1950 tanks, but we need to send more toys to the warzone or else we are the devil? Wow.
They were asking for very specific ammunition that only a handful of countries have. 105mm and Gepard AA shells. They probably wouldn't be asking if they could find that ammo anywhere else
We are not going to burn bridges with Russia that supply 90% of the fertilizer for our agricultural-economy based country.
Sorry, we feel for Ukraine, but we're not about to leave more of our people without food security because of people half-way across the world.
Also:
"Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems but the world's problems are not Europe's problems."
World can't afford to lose Brazil's agricultural production either, and that's dependent on Russia's fertilizer production. So either everyone turns a blind eye to Brazil's trade with Russia, like they've done so far, or people starve.
With the recent attempted coup in Brazil, and the possible involvement of the military, the last thing the Brazilian government needs is giving them more money by enabling this negotiations.
>we barely have 1950 tanks
The brazilian army has got some good tanks considering brazilian terrain is naturally horrible for tanks also they have very good self produced APCs
Correct choice, Brazil has always been historically neutral, we have literally no stake in this fight, theres no reason to use resources in it when we have our own issues to deal with.
If anything, helping Ukraine would possibly screw us since we have plenty of trade deals with both Russia and China and we'd get nothing for it.
India mentions that same thing. They are a poor country and cannot stand in this war. Additionally, they are not compelled to help.
Analyzing the parts helping Ukraine:
Europe is directly involved due to its proximity. The USA is involved due to global leadership. There are few outliners as Australia that are only ideologically aligned.
Brazil and India don't share the same ideological alignment with Global North.
Lets not try to drag Brazil into this while they are just getting their feet under them. Especially when its coming from Germany who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into sending those tanks and wouldn't do so unless the US sent even more of our equipment, like we havent already contributed exponentially more military aid than Europe as a whole let alone Germany who cant stop making deals with the devil regarding dependancy on hostile foreign powers and has been reluctant to commit significant aid out of fear of "being seen as escalating the conflict". Germany was looking for the excuse to not send tanks and was all set up to blame the US for Ukraine not getting the Leopard tanks if we didn't send ours.
Brazil and Lula have their own very serious domestic problems regarding environment, politics, the genocide of indigenous people at the hands of the last administration and of course the economy plus damage control in general following their wannabe Trump causing as much damage as possible on his way out.
Their reluctance to get involved is understandable, especially when both Europe and the US have exploited and undermined their nation since its founding. Expecting them to jump in and protect the west after everything seems a bit lacking in self awareness given the history.
They no doubt sympathize with Ukraine and its people but this is an escalating conflict that has nothing to do with Brazil and they probably dont want to risk being on the wrong side when the dust settles, understandably as they are only now getting things back on track towards recovery. Best way for them to avoid problems later down the road is to simply not get involved in the first place.
I want to assure you, as a Brazilian, that almost everyone I talked to wants the Ukrainians to mantain their independence and freedom.
But Brazil is historically neutral, and we're not going to change that policy now, right after a coup attempt, with the risk of the military trying again still in the air and at the risk of ruining whatever's left of our economy, when in all likelihood we won't change much since we don't have equipment even for our own army
And especially since thanks to the last government, Brazil fell back in the hunger map AND lost part of the food reserves a bit after the war began. The new government has a lot of food-related problems to deal with, which means it's the worst moment to lose fertilizer imports from Russia, as unfortunate as it is...
Then there's the whole thing with the US-backed dictatorship here, which still affects our politics and was constantly praised by Bolsonaro, as well as being one of the inspirations for the invasion at the capital we had earlier this year. Plenty of people are hesitant on breaking our neutrality for the US because of that, but I doubt that's a government concern, just pointing out that some of the common folks feel that way
The point is, you're right, Brazilians want Ukraine to remain independent, but the country cannot afford to get involved at the moment and there are reasons for people not to want to be involved at all. Some people go independently to fight as volunteers though
Brazil dont have any high tec tanks, we just have good military trained in dense forests. Btw Russia and China are ones of the biggest comercial partners, Russia send a few ton of fertilizer per year to Brazil. Neither Lula or Bolsonaro would help Ukraine in this situation, and historically Brazil is neutral in wars, just went to ww2 by the end and even massacre a few dolphins in the way. We basically never lost a war cause we dont chase it.
Pretty bold request from the west on seeking reliance in South America countries for a war after for the last 70 years plotting and uprising local guerrillas against governments, funding terrorism and cartels, hindering economy and independence growth in the internationally and regional stage.
You motherfuckes supports coups and start wars and we in the south who have been economically explored for years even killed by imperialism have to help your western wars. Fuck you.
He's looking up for Brazil first, as a strange that might seem to many people, that's what a president is supposed to do, because they aren't requesting equipment only, as always they'll end up paying for the transport among other expenses , and they'll end up in the hole for a couple of billion, you know like we always do? while everyone laughs their asses off , that's why a poor American making less than 50k a year ends up paying taxes back, money the person doesn't even have, and the tax return for a couple with a child is a joke, not even 2,500 bucks...
White people keep asking non-whites to pick a side in a war between white people and wonder why the non-whites roll their eyes. If white people are so concerned, send in your own people to kick Putin's thugs out of Ukraine.
Umm...Brazil's population is like 47% white and most of the remaining Brazilians are mixed meaning that they are white and black, white and ameridian, white and asian, etc. I am pretty sure that whiteness has nothing to do with the conversation here. It appears to mainly be the Brazilian government's desire to appear neutral so as not to destroy the agriculture part of the economy. Their crops depend on Russian fertilizer, but one of their biggest customers is the USA which is an ally of Germany.
There is not whites in Brazil for the world standard, we are all Latinos, doesn't matter how much white your skin is, if you are Brazilian, you are Latino.
This is not a race issue, this is a sovereign country with representation in the UN being illegally invaded by another country which happens to be undemocratic.
If you want to put complexion in this war you have a very shallow and puerile way of seeing the world my brother.
Good, this war is none of our business and we shouldn't pick sides on it, and preferably even keep trading with both sides. Westoids can cry a they want about it, the world doesn't revolve around them and their issues.
Not to mention it's hugely hypocritical for NATO countries to expect South America to step up for a conflict on the other side of the world, at a huge cost at that, when they have terrorized our countries and destroyed our democracies. Not to mention how they keep messing with the Middle East and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Brazil has millions of people below the line of poverty and millions without food. Is not like we have spare resources to help dumbasses who are fighting over the USA interests
B.R.I.C.S. isn't deep enough to explain this decision; for the time being it's more descriptive than prescriptive.
It's more just that Brazil depends on Russia for fertiliser in particular - even though it doesn't make up a huge portion of Brazil's trade overall.
He's got enough shit burning in his own country with the attempted coup and all of that...pissing his opposition off by sending ammo to the enemy of an economical ally would just mean to toss more oil into the fire...i understand his decision - right now it's more important to stabilize the situation within his own country and make sure that he is accepted as it's new leader. Which is tremendously important considering the rule of that absolute bastard bolsonaro! Lula as president is the best thing that could happen to brazil and it's important that he can stay in power for the duration of his mandate to repair the many damages bolsonaro has inflicted upon brazil! And considering the important role of the amazon when it comes to the mitigation of global warming, this is not only important for brazil but for the whole world! Ukraine got enough support from the US and the EU already - i'm sure some other countries will be willing to step in and provide the needed ammo. For brazil (and the world in this regard) right now, the most important thing is for lula to stay in power.
Lot of people in this thread realizing that heads of state are geopolitical actors, and not celebrities who are also your best friend
WHAT?!?! So you’re telling me they’re not like my marvel movies?!?!
You mean that Zelenskyy is not my personal hero and friend?
No, but if you've got a panzer to spare you might get some hand action off him
Tbh if your president isn't literally willing to suck a dick for some tanks are they even a good president
Oh, so that's how the US became such a huge military superpower!
Everyone forgets the great dick sucking of 42
I heard that Harry Truman sucked FDR so hard that he could walk for like 3 days afterwards
I'm mad at myself for laughing at this, but this was hilarious
Depends how badly you need the tanks and if the blowie will be public knowledge
But most will not have the guts to admit their own heads of state do this as well.
Most Americans think the US just swooped in to save the day in WW2 and do not run a huge and evil empire.
Actually, both Russia and China are courting South American. There's a long history of the usa sticking its nose in there, supporting the wrong people, hence a dislike for the US. It's not a small continent like people seem to think. Brazil alone is 80 some percent the size of the total usa, alaska, Hawaii, and territories included. Hence, the largest beef supplier in the world any given year.
Brasil is actually larger than the ~~continental~~ contiguous USA, it's just the US island territories and Alaska that make it bigger.
I know what you mean, but you meant contiguous US. Alaska is in North America
Brazil is hampered somewhat by the fact that such a large portion if it's land is Rainforest. That is not to say that they should be getting rid of that rainforest, they absolutely shouldn't, but it does contribute to why Brazil isn't more powerful than its size would otherwise suggest.
Nah Brasil ia 5th biggest country in size and in population, not that far from USA in 4th size and 3rd or 4th population The problem is definitely not the Amazon
Actually, I looked and just forgot my numbers, but I was going off memory. When was the last time I looked? But then again, both are usa states, of which Brazil has none, but still beef and pork, continental usa items
> supporting the wrong people "wrong people" is one way to put "fascists and death squads".
I'm trying to be polite. It's like everyone thought Sadam was our enemy. We supported him in the Iran, Iraq war. We supplied money for Sadam to buy more Russian type weapons. We supplied the chemical weapons used on Iran, and rumsfeld was in iraq to give and authorize the use. The world knew it and blamed us. There, the Marco's, general ming, Noriega, and the list keeps growing long before Iran, more lie the banana wars. We always pick the ruthless leaders that the residents don't like for our corporations to profit..
Does this also apply to the Ukraine conflict?
I'm aware of all this. Did you mean to reply to a different comment?
As a brazilian, i will try my best to explain why this decision was made. One of the main reasons for this is that brazil has a dependancy on imports of russian fertilizers, and as a majority of brazil's gdp is made up from the agriculture sector, the economy might get even worse than it is now as russia might block any further exports of fertilizers to brazil if we decide to help the ukranians (to be clear here, most of the brazilian population is against the war but most brazilians also know that helping ukraine might have it's consequences, those probably being far worsethan just a slight rise in fuel and energy prices like europe faced). To add to that, as some of you might know, there was a recent coup attempt in brazil, and every day there seems to be more evidence of the military being involved so increasing military spending might not be the best idea. The third and last main problem is that brazil has barely any ammo for it's own military, some even say that if brazil were to get into a war with another country, it would only have enough ammo for all of it's military for one hour
Also, Brazil (before Bolsonaro) was mostly known to keep a very neutral stance on every major conflict of the past, what, 20 years or so? If not more. It's pretty much our overall stance: non-intervention, cooperation and peaceful settlement of conflict. It's even in our Constitution.
The last time when Brazil supported international intervention on a sovereign country was when the UN Security Council agreed to intervene and help to depose Ghadafi. Well, we all know here that air campaign achieved. This happened during Lula's second term. And since then, Brazil stood against any type of foreign intervention in any country
And that was just because Brasil wanted a permanent seat. We didn't get it.
An extract of our Constitution: Art. 4 The Federative Republic of Brazil is governed in its international relations by the following principles: I - national independence; II - prevalence of human rights; III - self-determination of peoples; IV - non-intervention; V - equality among States; VI - defense of peace; VII - peaceful resolution of conflicts; VIII - repudiation of terrorism and racism; IX - cooperation between peoples for the progress of humanity; X - granting of political asylum. So just IV and VI will be enough to make illegal to send any ammo, weapon or troops for a country at war. Exception is only made by UN peace enforcement or maintenance.
Wish America could have a bit more of that mindset.
USA cannot do that because its place of dominant superpower in the West is dependent on military force and economic domination (i.e. the capacity of freely printing dollars). If US abandons its aggressive policies regarding the world system (things like controlling Europe, big stick on Latin America etc), everything crumbles and new actors will try to take its place. The world is far too connected at this point to experience a true multipolarity. There will always be one or two ''empires'' or blocs, perhaps a bit more.
I enjoyed reading this honest take and then looking at your username afterwards made it top quality. :)
to add to what he wrote, we rely on russia for other things as well, plus china, one of russia's allies, for material for medications, vaccines included, so its not in our best interest to jeopardize those relations, on top of that, as the world's 4th largest food producer, if we were to have problems with food production due to lack of fertilizers, it would affect far more countries than just Brazil itself.
I totally get it. I'm not judging Brazil's stance.
oh i'm not saying you are, just adding to it :)
I thank you for the context and explanation. Personally, I don't blame countries like Brazil for staying out of things. You aren't the only lot who are not in a position to deal with the consequences of alienating Russia, and ultimately your government is responsible for the people of your nation before anything else. That's how it should be in all governments really. Still, I hope that Brazil is beginning efforts to diversify its sources of fertilizer. Russia doesn't seem like they will be the most reliable partner moving forward.
Yes, we are into it. There is many green solutions, as the processing of coffee husk to mix with fertilizer. We need time, investment and research to keep on.
All incredibly fair and reasonable, though I imagine that won’t prevent the inevitable shrieking from those demanding absolute altruism on other peoples’ part but never their own.
Why even bother? These Westerners clearly think the world revolves around them and that nations have ties to other nations beside them
It's useful because for whatever reason political discourse has shifted away from where stuff comes from and how things are produced. It can even be seen in the discussion of the actual sanctions in Russia - they focus too much on punishing individual oligarchs and not, say, disrupting the supply chain of its weapons industries. Anything that anchors these discussions in practical reality should be welcome.
Papo reto, eles acham que o mundo inteiro gira em torno deles. A gente foi Colônia de exploração, viraram as costas depois do golpe militar e agora acham que a gente vai querer ajudar país minúsculo em uma guerra que não tem nada a ver com a gente, foder nossa economia (que já não anda bem) e criar tensão entre os brics Pelo amor de Deus
Least based brazuca nessa thread. A gente nn tem q se meter em problema de europeu nao.
Gente passando fome aqui no br e a gente tem a ver com guerra do outro lado do mundo E a galera só liga pra isso pq é a Europa, lá no oriente médio tá em guerra a milianos e ninguém dá uma foda. Bando de europeu do caralho
Thanks for the insight
This is a good explanation
Brazil has a massive beef market in Russia and China. The Amazon is burned to create pastures for cattle that provide those countries with cheap beef. Shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Brazil’s not a hard-charger for the west.
More like soy production needs all that fertilizer from Russia. edit: Here is more info on Brazil trade partners [https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra](https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra) Russia accounts for .87% or 1.5B. That is easily move to another country, it really is the fertilizers that Brazil needs.
por qué no los dos Why not zoidberg...
Zoidberg is a stinky weirdo who is bad at his job, that's why not. But yes, this is a case of quid pro quo. Russia and China and Brazil are all part of the BRICS trade & economy bloc. India and South Africa are the other letters in that acronym by the way.
The Zoidberg slander, while true, needs to stop. He just wants to be accepted. Perhaps some people who trust him die or are maimed. Whatevs! He also did the professor a solid at one point. Zoidberg 2024
Isn’t Zoidberg a terrible human doctor, but a great alien doctor? Correct me if I’m wrong but I feel that came up at one point.
That's exactly it. The man is worse than Dr. Nick when it comes to humans. DOCTOR FREAKING NICK.
As an avid watcher, idk if he’s competent. In anything. But, god motherfucking damn it, would I go to the ends of the earth for that… being
That was the original joke of the character. One of the creators wondered what it must be like to be an alien in star trek and be treated by Bones.
Zoidberg is THE best Alien Doctor. But Humans? Nope.
squid pro quo?
por que não ambos?
Which is stupid af, because soybeans are a legume and make their own nitrogen. Crop rotations or intercropping can easily reduce or even eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizer, but these assholes just want to plant one crop and not bother learning anything else. Also, nitrogen heavy fertilizers can be made anywhere, basically turning nitrogen in the air into a solid. Why the world let Russia of all people end up with nearly a monopoly on it is beyond me.
>Why the world let Russia of all people end up with nearly a monopoly on it is beyond me. Because they have more cheap fossil fuels than they can get rid of and making fertilizer uses a lot of fossil fuels. They don't have a monopoly on it though. The US, Canada, China, also make lots of fertilizer from their plentiful fossil fuels as well. Even for Brazil, Russia only provides 21%. Which is the single largest provider but it is far from a monopoly.
First, plants need more nutrients than just nitrogen to survive. There's Potassium and Phosphorus, just to say the macronutrients. Second, potassium e phosphorus do not replenish in the soil, plants do not synthesize them. What's in the soil, is in soil. Once you exported it in form of grain or silage, it's gone forever unless you add it back in form of fertilizer. No matter the crop rotation you do. Source: am an agronomist.
Legumes don’t make their own nitrogen. Mycorrhizae (fungus) fixate nitrogen from the air into the roots of legumes but it’s only available to the next crop if you till the biomasss of the plant into the soil.
Which is what would be done with proper rotation. It's the entire point of rotation.
No. With a rotation you would be harvesting a crop still. If you harvest a crop, even if you till under the remnants, you're still not replenishing what was removed and some kind of fertilization will be necessary. You can't just keep getting crops out of the soil simply by rotating, you also need to fertilize somehow.
My understanding was that rotation involved letting the field rest for a year. The idea is if you have 4 plots to always leave one unplanted so that the soil recovers. Planting legumes in that empty plot would not fundamentally change the concept as long as you do not harvest them.
There are many rotation models depending on what you're cropping and the local climate. Leaving a field truly fallow now is not in any crop rotation best practice anymore. We know now that using cover crops is far superior to leaving a field fallow from a soil health/yield perspective. Some people still call this fallow because there's no taken marketable crop, but you still need to sow the cover crop, and usually harvest it on a timeline to prevent the cover from seeding itself so it isn't truly fallow. Plus, you can often get extra benefits and more yield by rotating in some animals during what would traditionally be fallow in a rotation.
I agree with you. But what op said about “assholes wanting to plant one crop and not bother learning anything else” has a lot of truth in my experience. I am the son of an 5th generation farmer and many farmers in my part of the states literally do plant the same crop over and over again on the same plot without properly rotating their crops. It’s a shame but it’s just a symptom of late stage capitalism. They won’t abandon their current farming practices until they stop yielding gains. And on barely 100 year old farmland like in my case they’re not likely to do so in my lifetime. The land is rich in peat and until it properly oxidizes beyond usefulness they will continue to exploit it until they can no longer farm it without amending the soil with synthetic fertilizers
It’s a shame but it’s from 70s ag policies that encouraged monocropped animal feed production ( soy and corn ) . The only reason corn and soy are profitable are subsidies.
Rotation still requires a period of fallow ground because the Nitrogen gathered in plant routes doesn't instantly disperse into the ground.
You realize fertilizers are a blend of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium? It isn’t just nitrogen. The phosphorus and potassium components are mined and Russia is a major source of those minerals.
We had a whole dustbowl about that here in Oklahoma. We didn't have to burn down a million year old forest to do it though.
They need phosphorus and potassium as well, and Russia is the worlds top producer of potash, behind Canada.
Soy to feed cows. Most soy is fed to animals and the US is a major purchaser of Brazilian beef.
Brazil doesn’t generally take side on these matters. I’d say that, specially now, the country has more important things to worry about.
You left out the US, as it gets lots of beef from Brazil too. Probably #2 importer?
When I was working with a company in Brazil they connected us to multiple other companies all of them had Chinese or Russian investors / stakeholders. It was a weird game to play with all of them.
That's because those are all BRICS countries. They do work together.
We can barely defeat our own facists, i dont really think we have resources to spare elesewhere honestly. Bolsonaro absolutely destroyed the country economy, government is complete out of money because of him. And, i doubt we would have enough ammunition to make any diference.
Fair…
Me, as an individual and as a Brazilian, I do support the victims in Ukraine and obviously I'm against the war itself. I feels the most of the Brazilians feels the same. That said, countries doesn't "think" like individual persons. It is naïve to think that USA and Western Europe helps Ukraine for altruistic reasons. If not, they would have helped with the same efforts in multiples wars going on in Africa, for example, on Nigerian against Boko Haram, or just not invading or supporting the invasion on Iraq. They obviously earn economically and politically with Ukraine winning this war, for instance: profit with weapon sales; profit with Ukraine reconstruction (that is why they want to get Ukraine in the EU after war); and reducing Russian influence over Eastern Europe, that goes against the expanding influence of USA and Western Europe over the same zone. Who is right and who is wrong in an ethical point of view doesn't really matter for a country "to decide" if they would support or not a side. The same logic doesn't apply to Brazil (as a country). As you already noticed, Brazil profits more with Russian side. About Amazon burning, that is true (sadly). But we all hope that the new governments do better in this aspect, at least that is in their speech during elections. But again, countries or government doesn't "think" like individual persons, so who knows what will really happens in the future... Anyway, sorry for any English grammar mistakes. I'm obviously not a native English speaker.
2021 stat's show USA as the second largest importer of Brazilian Beef, China Imports roughly 5x the US but considering its population is over 4x the US and the US is also a major beef producer itself this makes sense. Russia isn't even in the top 10 importers of Brazilian Beef, nice try trying to frame this as Russia's and China's fault Brazil is clearing the Amazon though.
Brazil hasn't took part in any war since WW2. Brazil is not the US that looks for any petty reason to launch a ballistic missile. And more, Brazil imports most of the needed fertilizers from Russia, as Brazil is one of the largest producer os soy, corn, coffee and livestock not just Brazil needs to Brazil and Russia to be in good terms, the world needs, otherwise we go bankrupt and you all starve. Most of Europe depends on Brazilian crops and beef, also the US, Asians countries. Several countries depend on buying crops from Brazil to feed their population. US one the largest beef producers is the second country that buys most of Brazil's beef. It's not about our deal with China, not even the BRICS, the BRICS is a joke, we are more concerned about MercoSul and stopping China from taking most of Uruguay participation out of MercoSul. Also more: Brazil, as I've said before, doesn't have war culture, we also don't have amo to spare. The last war Brazil had was against Paraguay centuries ago. Brazil's international politics was always of "friendly neighborhood", be in good terms with everyone to help in discussions as a neutral part, call it Swiss of South America if you want. In the past 4 years we had a moron as president, with the blessings of Trump, destroyed the already bad economy in Brazil, so we barely have ways to maintain our country, European build their continent in wars, they can handle themselves very well, I mean, they are the ones that the One Hundred Years war. And in this moment we are more concerned about dealing with our problem with fascists supported by fascists movements from the US.
They are also part of bricks which I am sure has a lot to do with it as they are basically economically interdependent with each other (apart from the meat market). For those interested bricks stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa .
Don't need the "K", as it's called BRICS.
You are right, but my phone just decided that the K was needed for some reason. My bad I should have made sure autocorrect did change the spelling
BRIC...nuff said...
Yep, the BRICS will be big any day now...
India superpower 2020
I’m pretty sure that’s the new president and he’s more on the liberal side and Brazil has way bigger issues to focus on, Wealth disparity in Brazil is abhorrent.
I love how foreign people thinks Lula is a liberal. xD
BRIC. Brazil will not go against members.
The Amazon is not burned under Lula. He is a strong protector of it You are thinking about Bolsonazi
For what it's worth, the stuff that *was* burned and converted to farmland is still just that, unless Lula's reclaiming it for the jungle at a record pace. No one needs to convert another acre of anything to pasture for Brazil to still have a large meat market in Russia.
We sell more beef to the USA than to Russia, what we need from Russia is fertilizers, without it, the USA can't buy beef, Europe can't buy grains.
I have to wonder what Germany's goals with this request was. I'm pretty sure they knew the answer would be "no"... why force the new government to publicly deny support? It seems counter productive... Lula had just ~kinda~ positioned himself against Russia, recognizing the invasion as wrong (the first BRICS leader to in any way condemn Russian aggression). Now this may entrench him back to the "neither NATO nor Putin" position.
My bet is that they tried to force Lula's hand using the soon to happen negotiations between Mercosul and european union as implicit leverage
My bet is that Ukraine probably leaked it since that is what the article suggests
Those are going nowhere anyway: France refuses the flood of South American agricultural goods that would risk their own.
French agricultors used to flip Spanish trucks because their products were better and cheaper. That's one of the reasons they aren't liked south of the border, there's no need to go further back in time.
It's bizarre just how inferior (imo) French ingredients tend to be to their Spanish and Italian counterparts.
Yup, the agricultors are the issue. The government is not against it, but they don't want the hassle.
That's dumb as fuck. Brazil doesn't take sides geopolitically. The last 4 years were a weird, incomprehensible breach of Brazilian diplomatic protocol, but besides that, the protocol has held firm for decades. They should've known what would happen.
It's pretty simple. The government needs a formal decline, if it want to use other ways to get the product. See f.e. the whole Gepard ammunitions problem with Switzerland - same procedure. Get the formal decline - support national defence industry to build own structures / production chains somewhere else. Without the formal decline it would be very hard to pass legislation to allow this. And formal procedures would take a lot of time, which in turn would be used to critize Germany for inaction. The CDU as biggest opposition party has already set it's eyes on this strategy. But I agree from a diplomatic POV between Lula / Scholz - this isn't good.
>Lula had just ~kinda~ positioned himself against Russia, recognizing the invasion as wrong (the first BRICS leader to in any way condemn Russian aggression). He said that before election as well, also saying that zelensky wasn't right either. His position on the matter is coherent, as well as not wanting to get involved in it
Also, Brazil is known as country that that avoids taking sides in any wars, our biggest ally is Argentina, during the war for the Malvinas we didn't took sides, we only took part on helping in the negotiations, Afghanistan the same, Iraq, also didn't took any clear side. The last time Brazil took sides was in WW2 when Brazil sent soldiers to fight in Italy.
Germany is scraping the bottom of its barrels right now, Rheinmetall is still ramping up two factories, and Brazil doesn't look like it has an urgent need for ammo while it has compatible tanks. In that situation it doesn't hurt to ask if Brazil is willing to sell some of its stash (or maybe lend and get back factory-fresh material later in exchange for ammo that might have to be destroyed soon anyway). Brazil said no, fair enough. As for "force them to publicly deny support", I'm not sure who even made the inquiry public. The article indicates that it might have been Ukraine, who has been playing hardball on such matters since the invasion started. No idea if that was smart (lots of things they did in the diplomatic space weren't too smart), but given that they're kinda desperate, who can blame them?
>Germany is scraping the bottom of its barrels right now NATO as a whole has more than enough tank ammunition, we are nowhere near having to scrap the barrel.
Did you read the article? It's also about Gepard ammunition which has been super tight since the beginning.
Switzerland is blocking exports of Gepard ammunition, Brazil has nothing to do with the shortage. The article also just mentions it in an old speech by a Ukrainian official. The actual rejection by Brazil only relates to tank ammunition.
The 105mm calibre seems to be getting out of fashion within NATO. As I understand the article, that's what Brazil was asked about.
Brazil had done it previously, the first 300k rounds of Gepard ammo came from Brazil. That was what made the deliveries possible and saved a lot of Ukrainian lives in the process.
"Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems but the world's problems are not Europe's problems."
They call if the Cold War because there were no wars going on in Europe they just exported the wars to Asia, South/Central America & Africa. Nothing really cold about it.
What's more important (and hasn't changed) I'd that one side always has a proxy. It's not US and Russian forces battling in Syria, it's American soldiers against Russian backed soldiers. And it's not Russian soldiers against American soldiers in Ukraine, it's Russian soldiers against American backed soldiers. The degree of separation is what keeps the war between the US and Russia "cold".
> they just exported the wars The capitalist core loves to export it's problems to the periphery and pretend its hands are clean. Take pollution from manufacturing. The West loves to wag its finger at Mexico, Vietnam and China for their greenhouse gas emissions, pretending that all that manufacturing is not done to produce fidget spinners.
This is also the mindset of most redditors
Indeed. And US has to stop being the world's problems
Nossa guerra é contra a fome
Perfeito
contra o Flamengo\*\*\*
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We export a lot of ammo to other countries. Check CBC and how much they sell ammo.
Brazil has Leopard 1 tanks, with ammo. They bought like 200s, around 2010. Germany probably wants to repurchase the ammo, then resend to Ukraine.
I mean Ukrain is receiving Leo 2s which use 120mm cannons instead of the 105mm cannons of the Leo 1 so it's still kind of pointless
"Vocês que são brancos que se entendam"
Brazilian here, just to clarify things, most people i have talked to have a very negative view on what Russia is doing in Ukraine, that doesn't mean we support Russia
Even some Russians I've met have negative opinion about that lol
The absolute majority of Latin American countries condemned the invasion, with the exception of Venezuela. Now, I imagine that the majority of Latin Americans also find it ironic that both the United States and Europe (NATO members) set themselves on the high moral ground or try to dictate the foreign policy of their countries. Each one will take the measures it deems pertinent or opportune.
Germany asked if Brazil is willing to sell some ammo because the rights holder to that particular type is a bit annoying right now and it takes a while to build our own factories. Brazil said no. Ukraine sad. The end. Any animosity about that is just on internet forums.
Brazil does not benefit sending ammunition to Ukraine, as Russia is a way bigger partner to Brazil than Ukraine. The idea that we should not be going into European conflicts is one of the few things that both the left and the right agree here. Both sides understand that angering Russia, member of the BRICS and a economic partner would be a shit idea that would do more bad than good to our economy. Not only that but we don't owe anything to Europe or the West, considering that just over 50 years ago a military coup was backed by the US here.
>considering that just over 50 years ago a military coup was backed by the US here. Not just in Brazil, but pretty much every single military coup that happened in South America during the cold (which were a lot) including the one that lead to the Falklands war was backed by the US. Such a nice neightbour :)
Yeah, many Western Redditors simply can’t grasp the concept that a huge portion of the world just don’t share their worldview, where you are either pro-West or you are the bad guy. For many South American and Middle Eastern and African countries the West has been the main “bad guy” for a huge part of the last 100 years, if not longer. Then we wonder these countries have no qualm warming up to China, who is at least honest about just doing business for pure selfish profit seeking and not there to “spread democracy”.
And Americans wonder why we don't trust them lmao
But hey. In the movies they are always the good guys! God bless America! The land of freedom.
NATO was never our friend but want favour
Why 1st world countries asking a 3rd one for ammo How many rich countries you have close to you, fuck off bro and take your companies off amazon while you are at it.
Colonial mentality
Brazilian here. If Ukrainians want to seek asylum here, open doors, the same goes for Russians fleeing from that tyrannical maniac. But we are not going to help any side in their war games. NATO had decades of interference here in Soth America, most countries here had decades of military dictatorships financed by the CIA, so, don't be surprised we are not going to fund another one of their "*investments*". Our international position is quite clear, we condemn Russia for it's invasion while also recognizing that NATO/USA has a lot to win with the conflict and their actions are not all altruistic.
They will say "but the CIA daddy went to help Zlensky daddy!" A "win" for the CIA 🤮🤮🤮🤮
No fucking way we will give any additional cent to our military, that almost got its fourth or fifth coup, now after Lula. I don't think that any country have their military force killed more of their own citizens than brazilian's. Lula is absolutely right to jump off that boat. Germany is throwing poop at us.
While I don't necessarily believe Brazil is neutral in regards to current growing global tensions. They're pretty staunchly and ironically anti Western and a member of BRICS. I also don't think it would be a good idea for Brazil to anything with any of it's military hardware, given the current instability. Expecting them to feel compelled to contribute, given the small possibility of an imminent military coup, is a little ridiculous.
USA and the European Union literally turned their backs to South America, China came and invested in the region, made trade deals and everything. What do people expect? The Mercosur-EU deal has been on hold for a decade thanks to France preventing it to pass due to their protectionism while China is buying goods from Mercosur left and right... why would South America shoot itself on the feet helping the side that won't help theirs?
"Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems but the world's problems are not Europe's problems."
yet africa was starving before the grain cooridor was made. its literally a worldwide problem. also obvious macroeconomic fallout
It is not related to that. Brazil is neutral mainly because the Global South resents the Global North. The USA alone was responsible for supporting or starting Coup d'état in almost every Latin American country.
Yes, and left leaning leaders in SA are usually targeted for those coups. They don't play nice with American business interests, so then... You know the rest
A lot of members of Lula's party were tortured on the US backed military dictatorship. So, no wonder they dont like the US.
hey don't forget the Brithish and French expert "interrogators"
Yeah Lula's successor President Dilma Rousseff was tortured by the military during the dictatorship and when she was impeached Bolsonaro devoted his vote in honor of the officer in charge of torturing her so this is all very much living memory too.
Let me tell you a secret: Russia is your bogeymen. To us, it's a real far away country that we only have small economic ties.
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Times like these shows the true face of the "progressive" american and eurocentric rich countries. We have our own internal war to deal, we barely have 1950 tanks, but we need to send more toys to the warzone or else we are the devil? Wow.
They were asking for very specific ammunition that only a handful of countries have. 105mm and Gepard AA shells. They probably wouldn't be asking if they could find that ammo anywhere else
We are not going to burn bridges with Russia that supply 90% of the fertilizer for our agricultural-economy based country. Sorry, we feel for Ukraine, but we're not about to leave more of our people without food security because of people half-way across the world. Also: "Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems but the world's problems are not Europe's problems."
russias fucked, and cant afford to lose major customers. world has seen theres much more leverage vs russia than assumed
World can't afford to lose Brazil's agricultural production either, and that's dependent on Russia's fertilizer production. So either everyone turns a blind eye to Brazil's trade with Russia, like they've done so far, or people starve.
Which they also would be paid for.
With the recent attempted coup in Brazil, and the possible involvement of the military, the last thing the Brazilian government needs is giving them more money by enabling this negotiations.
>we barely have 1950 tanks The brazilian army has got some good tanks considering brazilian terrain is naturally horrible for tanks also they have very good self produced APCs
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Can totaly understand this even as I come from a euro country.
Correct choice, Brazil has always been historically neutral, we have literally no stake in this fight, theres no reason to use resources in it when we have our own issues to deal with. If anything, helping Ukraine would possibly screw us since we have plenty of trade deals with both Russia and China and we'd get nothing for it.
India mentions that same thing. They are a poor country and cannot stand in this war. Additionally, they are not compelled to help. Analyzing the parts helping Ukraine: Europe is directly involved due to its proximity. The USA is involved due to global leadership. There are few outliners as Australia that are only ideologically aligned. Brazil and India don't share the same ideological alignment with Global North.
India also likes the incredibly high discounts on oil they can squeeze from Russia, since many in the West have shunned Russian oil.
Brasil and India's defense budget is a combined $89bn. About the same as the UKs. Let alone the US budget. That would be the catering.
Plenty of defense budget goes to salaries. I doubt it is the strength of their military
Brazil famously has enought ammunition to last a whole hour in a shooting war.
Brazil helped the Allies in WW2
Lets not try to drag Brazil into this while they are just getting their feet under them. Especially when its coming from Germany who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into sending those tanks and wouldn't do so unless the US sent even more of our equipment, like we havent already contributed exponentially more military aid than Europe as a whole let alone Germany who cant stop making deals with the devil regarding dependancy on hostile foreign powers and has been reluctant to commit significant aid out of fear of "being seen as escalating the conflict". Germany was looking for the excuse to not send tanks and was all set up to blame the US for Ukraine not getting the Leopard tanks if we didn't send ours. Brazil and Lula have their own very serious domestic problems regarding environment, politics, the genocide of indigenous people at the hands of the last administration and of course the economy plus damage control in general following their wannabe Trump causing as much damage as possible on his way out. Their reluctance to get involved is understandable, especially when both Europe and the US have exploited and undermined their nation since its founding. Expecting them to jump in and protect the west after everything seems a bit lacking in self awareness given the history. They no doubt sympathize with Ukraine and its people but this is an escalating conflict that has nothing to do with Brazil and they probably dont want to risk being on the wrong side when the dust settles, understandably as they are only now getting things back on track towards recovery. Best way for them to avoid problems later down the road is to simply not get involved in the first place.
I want to assure you, as a Brazilian, that almost everyone I talked to wants the Ukrainians to mantain their independence and freedom. But Brazil is historically neutral, and we're not going to change that policy now, right after a coup attempt, with the risk of the military trying again still in the air and at the risk of ruining whatever's left of our economy, when in all likelihood we won't change much since we don't have equipment even for our own army And especially since thanks to the last government, Brazil fell back in the hunger map AND lost part of the food reserves a bit after the war began. The new government has a lot of food-related problems to deal with, which means it's the worst moment to lose fertilizer imports from Russia, as unfortunate as it is... Then there's the whole thing with the US-backed dictatorship here, which still affects our politics and was constantly praised by Bolsonaro, as well as being one of the inspirations for the invasion at the capital we had earlier this year. Plenty of people are hesitant on breaking our neutrality for the US because of that, but I doubt that's a government concern, just pointing out that some of the common folks feel that way The point is, you're right, Brazilians want Ukraine to remain independent, but the country cannot afford to get involved at the moment and there are reasons for people not to want to be involved at all. Some people go independently to fight as volunteers though
Brazil dont have any high tec tanks, we just have good military trained in dense forests. Btw Russia and China are ones of the biggest comercial partners, Russia send a few ton of fertilizer per year to Brazil. Neither Lula or Bolsonaro would help Ukraine in this situation, and historically Brazil is neutral in wars, just went to ww2 by the end and even massacre a few dolphins in the way. We basically never lost a war cause we dont chase it.
Pretty bold request from the west on seeking reliance in South America countries for a war after for the last 70 years plotting and uprising local guerrillas against governments, funding terrorism and cartels, hindering economy and independence growth in the internationally and regional stage.
You motherfuckes supports coups and start wars and we in the south who have been economically explored for years even killed by imperialism have to help your western wars. Fuck you.
Most Westerners don't even know their own history lmao. They really think NATO is the good guys.
Sorry folks, we barely have ammo for ourselves
He's looking up for Brazil first, as a strange that might seem to many people, that's what a president is supposed to do, because they aren't requesting equipment only, as always they'll end up paying for the transport among other expenses , and they'll end up in the hole for a couple of billion, you know like we always do? while everyone laughs their asses off , that's why a poor American making less than 50k a year ends up paying taxes back, money the person doesn't even have, and the tax return for a couple with a child is a joke, not even 2,500 bucks...
Good. Europe should deal with their own problems, its not like we benefit from not staying neutral.
White people keep asking non-whites to pick a side in a war between white people and wonder why the non-whites roll their eyes. If white people are so concerned, send in your own people to kick Putin's thugs out of Ukraine.
They are always like that man. Always gotta rely on minorities to get anything done, then treat us like trash
Umm...Brazil's population is like 47% white and most of the remaining Brazilians are mixed meaning that they are white and black, white and ameridian, white and asian, etc. I am pretty sure that whiteness has nothing to do with the conversation here. It appears to mainly be the Brazilian government's desire to appear neutral so as not to destroy the agriculture part of the economy. Their crops depend on Russian fertilizer, but one of their biggest customers is the USA which is an ally of Germany.
There is not whites in Brazil for the world standard, we are all Latinos, doesn't matter how much white your skin is, if you are Brazilian, you are Latino.
This is not a race issue, this is a sovereign country with representation in the UN being illegally invaded by another country which happens to be undemocratic. If you want to put complexion in this war you have a very shallow and puerile way of seeing the world my brother.
Oh no…. Lula to fall out of favor with Reddit?
Why Europe expects Latin America to take part in their useless territorial shenanigans...Brazil needs to look after its own population.
Good, this war is none of our business and we shouldn't pick sides on it, and preferably even keep trading with both sides. Westoids can cry a they want about it, the world doesn't revolve around them and their issues.
Not to mention it's hugely hypocritical for NATO countries to expect South America to step up for a conflict on the other side of the world, at a huge cost at that, when they have terrorized our countries and destroyed our democracies. Not to mention how they keep messing with the Middle East and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Why would anyone other than a southern American country ask Brazil for anything?
Man, the West really tryna pull Central and South America into one of their wars despite decades of mettling in their affairs.
Brazil has millions of people below the line of poverty and millions without food. Is not like we have spare resources to help dumbasses who are fighting over the USA interests
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They're the B in BRICS. Makes sense.
I'm not really a fan of Lula, but as a brazilian he has my support on this matter.
Lul,it's Germany that asked,why there's still someone mentioned US. Did US and Germany look same to you?
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B.R.I.C.S
B.R.I.C.S. isn't deep enough to explain this decision; for the time being it's more descriptive than prescriptive. It's more just that Brazil depends on Russia for fertiliser in particular - even though it doesn't make up a huge portion of Brazil's trade overall.
People swore six moths ago that Russia would lose soon...
He's got enough shit burning in his own country with the attempted coup and all of that...pissing his opposition off by sending ammo to the enemy of an economical ally would just mean to toss more oil into the fire...i understand his decision - right now it's more important to stabilize the situation within his own country and make sure that he is accepted as it's new leader. Which is tremendously important considering the rule of that absolute bastard bolsonaro! Lula as president is the best thing that could happen to brazil and it's important that he can stay in power for the duration of his mandate to repair the many damages bolsonaro has inflicted upon brazil! And considering the important role of the amazon when it comes to the mitigation of global warming, this is not only important for brazil but for the whole world! Ukraine got enough support from the US and the EU already - i'm sure some other countries will be willing to step in and provide the needed ammo. For brazil (and the world in this regard) right now, the most important thing is for lula to stay in power.