Playing with fire? Entrepreneurs and the foreign policy of Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil, 2019–2021

Abstract

This article considers how Brazilian entrepreneurs, mainly from the agribusiness and manufacturing sectors, interpreted and reacted to Brazil's foreign policy during the first 3 years of the Jair Bolsonaro administration (2019–2021). Through semistructured interviews and content analysis of business primary sources, the article concludes that, despite significant heterogeneities within and between economic sectors, agribusiness and manufacturing entrepreneurs were more critical of than complimentary toward the nature and directions of Bolsonaro's foreign policy. The article also shows that business lobbying was successful in several issues, including keeping the project of South American economic integration alive; containing the close association between Bolsonaro and Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel; and limiting the economic and political consequences of Brazil–China diplomatic crises. Despite their achievements, business leaders were less successful in moderating and much less changing Bolsonaro's approach toward the environment and climate change, which constituted a significant predicament for the country's image abroad and played a crucial role in obstructing the ratification of a trade deal with the European Union. Still, these negative implications were not enough to produce any serious split between business groups and the Bolsonaro administration during the first 3 years of Bolsonaro's rule.