The effects of imposing barriers on Brazilian products are as damaging as the effects of piracy. This was the message transmitted by the Minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan, to the government of the United States.
The message was sent by way of Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The two participated in the Brazil Against Piracy seminar in São Paulo, Brazil.
“Senator, I would like you to deliver this message to your colleagues, that unfair competition practiced through a large variety of subsidies to agriculture and some industrial sectors, including aviation, produces the same outcome of unfair competition as that caused by piracy, fraud, and falsification,” Furlan declared.
The Minister claims that Brazil is the victim of “disguised unfair competition” as the result of the subsidy policies and barriers imposed by other countries on Brazilian products.
The US Senator said that subsidies and piracy shouldn’t be compared. In his view, Furlan simply reflected the truth about piracy. He emphasized that matters involving commercial competition should be dealt with in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Coleman said that announcement of the decision on whether to remove some Brazilian products from the General System of Preferences (GSP) might be postponed from March 31, the date when it was scheduled to be announced.
The Brazilian products on the GSP list enter the United States duty-free. The United States is threatening to retaliate against Brazil, if Brazil fails to enforce the Intellectual Protection Law, in other words, does not combat piracy.
Translation: David Silberstein
Agência Brasil