Brazil waives visas for visitors from U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-brazil-visas/brazil-waives-visas-for-visitors-from-us-canada-australia-japan-idUSKCN1QZ2CB

by smn1234 • 7 years ago

65 69 7 years ago

reuters.com

gcb03• 7 years ago

the visa requirement for those countries were a formality, never being denied. it was just reciprocating the visa requirement of Brazilians to visit those destinations. it was a way to press for more international access for the citizens.

this action makes it clear that the current administration is giving up any hopes of international influence, a great shift from the previous workers party administration's stance, which was Brazil to be a leader of the BRICS

Scoundreller5• 7 years ago

it was a way to press for more international access for the citizens.

Does it work against large/rich countries?

The US and Canada are being forced to allow visa free travel for Romanians and Hungarians, so their response has been to create a visa that’s not a visa.

bulgarians• 7 years ago

Actually its Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania

sizeofchar4• 7 years ago

Your second paragraph is ideological gibberish. Brazil was always miles distant from leading BRICS, which is merely a buzzword to captivate through vanity the minds of theirs political elites.

By playing international influence game, the workers party managed to overflow Brazilian market with cheap and unfairly produced Chinese industrial goods, paying for it by selling most of our mineral commodities and committing with money-sink international projects with African dictatorships.

At the same time, the aforementioned party gave billions of dollars in infrastructure projects throughout Latin America bolivarian states, that without a doubt won't make returns in any way.

If that is what you call "international influence", I'm relieved we gave it up.

roberto• 7 years ago

At the same time, the aforementioned party gave billions of dollars in infrastructure projects throughout Latin America bolivarian states, that without a doubt won't make returns in any way.

First and foremost, the money went to Brazilian companies that built that infrastructure.

Second, it was a loan that has to be paid back by those governments.

Third, the loan is covered by insurance.

thraway-burnout7• 7 years ago

money-sink international projects with African dictatorships.

You mean like those projects that China funds to successfully increase their international relevance and financial prosperity? Like all the ports and plants and railways?

kikoreis• 7 years ago

Your reply seems equally ideological to me. The reality is that it's a complex situation, and that there is a non-trivial political concession in dropping reciprocity.

I think dropping it makes sense, because pragmatically the damage outweighs the benefits. But simplistic, partisan tarring of existing policy doesn't help us learn anything new.

gcb03• 7 years ago

Lol. I am talking about "stance" and "goals" of political parties on that paragraph, there's not even my opinion on which is better. You either have a reading impairment or are just plain trolling.

nbardy• 7 years ago

I visited Brazil with an American passport a few years ago and ended up spending a bunch of time gathering documents and visiting the embassy back and forth. It was pretty discouraging and draining and I thought about not going.

Potentially turned away tourists, but now I also I understand what it's like to go through the process and I'm a big proponent of more free borders. It's a double edge sword, but it certainly left a similar impact on the other Americans I met in Brazil as well.

dep_b4• 7 years ago

Your problem is that you don't have an American passport, you have a United States passport. It would be pretty nice if American passports would exist.

thraway-burnout7• 7 years ago

I visited Brazil with an American passport a few years ago and ended up spending a bunch of time gathering documents and visiting the embassy back and forth. It was pretty discouraging and draining and I thought about not going.

That is the same as when a Brazilian would like to visit the US. This general waiving of requirements simply guarantees that Brazil's the only one getting the short end of the stick. A negotiated reciprocal agreement would be much better.

gcb03• 7 years ago

You still only tasted the bureaucracy annoyance. For visiting the USA you have that plus the problems of being turned away by sheer caprice of the border agent. In the end you still are being treated much better all things considered.

Fomite2• 7 years ago

The visa requirements necessitated me going to San Francisco to apply in person, which was a non-trivial expenditure of both time and money.

molmalo3• 7 years ago

That was the idea, just to reciprocate what Brazilian (or Latin American citizens in general) have to do to get a visa for the USA.

thraway-burnout7• 7 years ago

Exactly like the reverse case. What would be better for Brazil is to waive requirements both ways. This just puts Brazil in a clear position of inferiority.

wenc• 7 years ago

it was just reciprocating the visa requirement of Brazilians to visit those destinations. it was a way to press for more international access for the citizens.

If this was the case, did the strategy work? I'm not sure if there are any countries that reversed its Brazil visa requirement due to reciprocity. Visa policies typically don't sway to political actions like reciprocity unless the country has some kind of leverage. I love Brazil but on this front I feel it overestimated its geopolitical importance (speaking as someone who went through the trouble to get a 5-year Brazil visa and am happy I no longer need one).

marcosdumay2• 7 years ago

this action makes it clear that the current administration is giving up any hopes of international influence

That's not a honest evaluation.

The current administration is giving up negotiation power on getting Brazilians more freedom of movement in exchange of facilitating foreigners tourism into Brazil.

You are free to disagree with the government's priorities, but you can't deny it is a meaningful exchange (it is not simply giving up stuff), and that it's aligned with its campaign promises, that people overwhelming approved (as 4 of the top 5 candidates had similar proposals).

KorematsuFred4• 7 years ago

Brazil as a leader of BRICS ? Whoever believed that must be smoking something strong. China and India would be the main contenders for that place and China is at least 3x more powerful than India.

Brazil can not have much international influence. Sadly, USA has played a deliberate role in keeping South American countries crime ridden and unstable. Brazil is at max a weak colony of USA.

Scoundreller5• 7 years ago

Ah, visa reciprocity. A policy that gets created when you let people with diplomatic passports decide who needs a visa.

We shouldn’t let people make decisions when the results can’t impact them under international law.

ridgewell2• 7 years ago

Visa reciprocity requires the agreement of both countries who are prepared to address the implications for visa-free travel between both countries.

Unilateral waivers for visas from certain countries are generally in a bid to increase foreign tourism and business travel and retain domestic tourism, while negating the need for complex negotiations and bilateral considerations.

Scoundreller5• 7 years ago

Reciprocity can also be

“You’re going to require a visa from our people? Well we’ll require a visa from your people!”

No agreement required. Visas usually come after migration begins (you used to be able to arrive by ship, no visa required anywhere in the world).

That seems to have been Brazil’s policy. I don’t think too many Canadians were going and overstaying, working illegally or otherwise causing trouble more than average.

rdtsc3• 7 years ago

A policy that gets created when you let people with diplomatic passports decide who needs a visa.

That would be most government officials, won't it? How do you propose handling visas then? Just not have reciprocity and have mandatory visas for every country? Sell visas on entry (some places do that, as a form of tax)?

Scoundreller5• 7 years ago

Arms length bureaucrats.

It’s only the senior officials that get diplomatic passports.

Create a process that decides and doesn’t report to them.

KorematsuFred4• 7 years ago

Whoever decides and negotiates the visa process must also be made to follow the same visa process for say 10 years. Other government officials can continue to have diplomatic passports.

Last year Indian government planned to giving two types of passports. A blue passport for all the educated skilled folks and an orange passport meant for blue color working class people. The idea was that to negotiate a separate visa system for high skilled Indian citizens with other countries.

There was an much uproar over this idea and it was shelved. It was both immoral and unethical to treat your citizens like this. A rich industrialist reportedly told PM's office that all government officials be given Orange passport if this were to pass to show solidarity with working class Indians.

zone4112• 7 years ago

Going in the opposite direction to the EU. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/travel/americans-eu-visa-...

hadrien01• 7 years ago

That's not a visa, it's more like the US ESTA: a simple online declaration

zone4112• 7 years ago

I didn't say it was. It's a new extra requirement.

dep_b4• 7 years ago

It would be nice if they would start waiving import tariffs for electronics

ridgewell2• 7 years ago

For example, during the 1980s Brazil enforced strict controls on the import of foreign computers in an effort to nurture its own "infant" computer industry. This industry never matured; the technological gap between Brazil and the rest of the world actually widened, while the protected industries merely copied low-end foreign computers and sold them at inflated prices. In addition, countries that put up barriers to imports will often face retaliatory barriers to their exports, potentially hurting the same industries that infant industry protection is intended to help. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_industry_argument

dep_b4• 7 years ago

I still have a Brazilian Atari 2600 clone from the end of the eighties or start of the 90's. Beamrider!

jecel• 7 years ago

Please note that there are errors in this text. All imports were banned due to the external debt crises. What was special about the computer industry is that foreign companies were not allowed to make mini computers or smaller locally unlike in other industries.

The lack of original designs were something that worried a lot of people at the time, but it turned out that PC clones killed everything else world wide so it wouldn't have mattered in the end.

While it was easy to find examples of inflated prices (the first PC clone was launched at US$15K for a configuration for which IBM charged US$5K, for example) there were a few cases where the local copy cost less than the original (like the TK3000 compared to the Apple //e).

I lobbied against the "reserved market policy" at the time and still wish that Brazil had taken Taiwan's path instead, but people remember things wrong and don't learn what they should from it.

An Atari 2600 clone was mentioned in another comment, for example. Videogames were not subject to the policy. Atari and Polyvox/Gradiente had a joint venture for the 2600 and Philips made its Odyssey 2, both things which the policy prohibited. Yet people remember the policy as being to blame for the late and expensive games even though the situation persisted for decades after its end in 1992.

andrenth2• 7 years ago

We actually have import taxes on everything (except books), which is 60% plus state-specific taxes (around 10-15%), which you pay on the whole price you payed, including the shipping costs. So in my experience we pay approximately 100% over the original price.

cesarb2• 7 years ago

Actually, no, the uniform 60% is a simplified tax for imports by persons (not companies). The normal import tax varies according to the product. A quick web search tells me the list of import taxes is at http://www.mdic.gov.br/index.php/comercio-exterior/estatisti... (the lists for download being at http://www.mdic.gov.br/index.php/comercio-exterior/estatisti...).

pastor_elm2• 7 years ago

I have no interest in supporting Bolsonaro’s Brazil with my USD

thraway-burnout7• 7 years ago

Brazil doesn't belong to Bolsonaro.

Also, presuming you're also not a fan of Trump, would you then advocate for all tourism to the USA to cease?

I don't think that's a rational position.

seppin2• 7 years ago

Also, presuming you're also not a fan of Trump, would you then advocate for all tourism to the USA to cease?

It has fallen off a cliff under Trump

pastor_elm2• 7 years ago

I wish countries would retaliate economically against Trump, yes.

markdown• 7 years ago

Passport sales made up 41% of revenue for the Government of Vanuatu in the 3rd quarter of 2018. The most common customer is someone from China desiring visa-free access to the EU.

Vanuatu sells citizenship for USD$155,000.

https://twitter.com/dailypostdan/status/1108123023616311296

Compare China and Vanuatu passports: https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=vu&p2...

fernandopj• 7 years ago

Very interesting. USA' EB-5 visa is at 500k USD, in comparison.

For a chinese national, a Vanuatu passport would provide visa-free entry at almost all of EU, Cuba, Hong Kong (!), Northern and many African countries, Israel, Caribeean.

KorematsuFred4• 7 years ago

EB-5 visa has 15 year wait time for Chinese folks.

petecox• 7 years ago

Hopefully Paraguay will follow. When I visited Argentina, I decided the red tape of neighbouring countries visiting Iguazu Falls wasn't worth the 13 hour bus ride.

Brazil waives visas for visitors from U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan

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