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Brazil waives visas for visitors from U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan
- gcb0 8y agothe 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
- Scoundreller 8y 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 8y agoActually its Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania
- Scoundreller 8y agoMost recently, It was just the 2 I had mentioned for Canada. But it depends how far you want to go back. E.g. visas for Croatians used to be required, but scrapped a long time ago.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sizeofchar 8y agoYour 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 8y 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.
- marcosdumay 8y ago> First and foremost, the money went to Brazilian companies that built that infrastructure. In every loan that got investigated, the money seems to have gone into corrupt politicians pockets, both inside and outside of Brazil.
- sizeofchar 8y agoNot only this, but even if the money comes back anyhow (and I am casting doubt on it, never heard of any insurances) all the international influence built will be lost, because it was done specifically for the parties of some countries supporting tyrants. There was no plan for Brazilian international relevance, but a plan for colluded political parties, to disintegrate nationalities.
- thraway-burnout 8y ago
- nbardy 8y agoI 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_b 8y agoYour 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.
- seppin 8y agoYou do know that "American" is shorthand for citizen of the USA in everywhere else in the world, right?
- thraway-burnout 8y 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.
- Fomite 8y agoThe visa requirements necessitated me going to San Francisco to apply in person, which was a non-trivial expenditure of both time and money.
- molmalo 8y agoThat was the idea, just to reciprocate what Brazilian (or Latin American citizens in general) have to do to get a visa for the USA.
- schoen 8y agoOne funny part of the implementation of reciprocity is that you could pay a visa expediter to actually deliver the passport and visa request without going to the consulate in person, whereas the U.S. consulates abroad don't allow this option. That means that the reciprocity was often more financial than, well, experiential.
- thraway-burnout 8y ago> whereas the U.S. consulates abroad don't allow this option. I wouldn't know whether this is allowed or not, as I never had use for such a service, but I know a few people myself who used an expediter in Brazil ("despachante") to ease the process of getting a U.S. visa.
- schoen 8y agoHuh! Do you know what the expediter does in this case? Don't the visa applicants still have to visit the U.S. consulate in person for an interview?
- thraway-burnout 8y agoAs far as I know it has to do with documentation, easier scheduling of the interviews for people who live far away from the consulate, as well as some queueing thing. Clearly I know very little.
- wenc 8y 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).
- marcosdumay 8y 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).
- KorematsuFred 8y agoBrazil 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.
- Scoundreller 8y agoAh, 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.
- ridgewell 8y agoVisa 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.
- Scoundreller 8y agoReciprocity 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.
- rdtsc 8y 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)?
- Scoundreller 8y agoArms length bureaucrats. It’s only the senior officials that get diplomatic passports. Create a process that decides and doesn’t report to them.
- zone411 8y agoGoing in the opposite direction to the EU. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/travel/americans-eu-visa-etias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/travel/americans-eu-visa-...
- dep_b 8y agoIt would be nice if they would start waiving import tariffs for electronics
- ridgewell 8y 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_industry_argument
- dep_b 8y agoI still have a Brazilian Atari 2600 clone from the end of the eighties or start of the 90's. Beamrider!
- jecel 8y agoPlease 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.
- pastor_elm 8y agoI have no interest in supporting Bolsonaro’s Brazil with my USD
- thraway-burnout 8y agoBrazil 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.
- seppin 8y 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
- obrisintor 8y agosource? here's one to the contrary https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/tourist-arrivals https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/tourist-arrivals
- pastor_elm 8y agoI wish countries would retaliate economically against Trump, yes.
- markdown 8y agoPassport 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 https://twitter.com/dailypostdan/status/1108123023616311296 Compare China and Vanuatu passports: https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=vu&p2=cn&p3=us&fl=&s=yes https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=vu&p2...
- fernandopj 8y agoVery 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.
- KorematsuFred 8y agoEB-5 visa has 15 year wait time for Chinese folks.
- petecox 8y agoHopefully 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.