A-Infos (en) Brazil, CAB: CURRENT ANALYSIS - CAB - AUGUST 2025 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In the current situation, resource disputes are intensifying under the 
umbrella of international relations and the advances of Brazil's 
agrarian elite. As anarchists, we need to interpret these movements to 
act appropriately within the popular struggle. ---- While the Trump 
administration tightens its sanctions, in its imperialist eagerness to 
further expand its dominance, the Brazilian government uses rare earths 
as a bargaining chip. In an attempt to curb a tariff war, Lula reserves 
an even larger portion of biodiversity for capitalist logic. Internally, 
the National Congress approves the Devastation Bill and illegal mining, 
exposing a Workers' Party government incapable of responding 
appropriately. COP30, a veneer of capitalist environmentalism, opens 
even more wounds in the lands of Belém. The Bolsonaro family, if they 
haven't already driven our people into enough misery during their years 
in office, are assuming the role of agents of imperialism, hoping to 
prevent Jair's arrest and dreaming that something will be left for them 
at the tables of the rich. The genocidal leader's arrest may be a 
necessary relief within the current situation, and the celebration of 
his conviction by the oppressed people is just. However, far from being 
a concrete victory, it is yet another piece of the class game.

The environmental crisis is a crisis of capitalism. The basis of this 
crisis is the exploitation of the people by the few who hold the vast 
majority of wealth: the lords of agribusiness, the owners of highly 
polluting industries and companies, and the CEOs of Big Tech, whose data 
centers consume excessive amounts of water. The exploitation of the 
people by those at the top comes hand in hand with the exploitation of 
the Earth's resources, the need to extract minerals from its depths, and 
even the generation of pollutants on a massive scale. It's not the 
people who are responsible for climate collapse, it's the rich! As if 
the rapid advance of climate change weren't enough, the colonialist 
elite is still hungry and is putting pressure on the little 
infrastructure we've managed to create to halt the advance of capitalism 
on our territories with the Devastation Bill.

Amid tensions and backroom deals, pressure from agribusiness and Trump's 
Tariff Boost, the Devastation Bill (Bill 2159/21) was approved by Lula 
with 63 vetoes, including some changes to its basic text, but it 
continues to pave the way for impunity in the devastation of our biomes. 
This is a clear attack on the lives of our people in this context of 
climate collapse, especially the forest peoples. Furthermore, we need to 
see the agenda of this bill as a critical issue for the working class, 
since, by reducing the requirement for environmental licensing, it will 
also reduce job opportunities for environmental professionals. It is 
therefore necessary to approach its dismantling as a union issue, 
involving workers in this sector, combining environmental and 
territorial discourse with union discourse, to guarantee the conditions 
for environmental licensing, a result of the struggle of organized 
people, as well as for the public servants who work in it.

Our political proposition as oppressed classes is linked to our idea of 
social ecology, so that from now on we act in our spaces of struggle in 
accordance with our plans for a future society, of integration between 
human beings and nature. Only with the effective participation of the 
scientific community and affected populations, as well as grassroots 
decisions by peasant, Indigenous, riverside, and quilombola communities, 
will we confront the crisis created by those at the top. We defend the 
idea that climate justice and the survival of our people can only occur 
by overcoming capitalism. Far from being a matter of stages, the 
destruction of this system and the construction of a new world go hand 
in hand.

In Trump's trade offensive, with a 50% tariff on exports, we must not 
embrace a nationalistic and simplistic rhetoric like "Brazil belongs to 
the Brazilians." As socialists, we are internationalists and, as such, 
we must be guided by international solidarity among oppressed peoples. 
We fight for the self-determination of peoples, their participation in 
the decisions and direction of economic and political life. Trump's 
taxation allowed Lula a breath of fresh air, a rhetoric of "national 
unity of different social classes" between the people and sectors of the 
bourgeoisie-whose enemies we are and who certainly do not share our 
interests. More than a partnership between Trump and Bolsonaro, the 
tariffs are primarily driven by the BRICS issue and how it poses a 
threat to the US, especially in the face of China's strengthening and 
the growing signs of de-dollarization.

This rhetoric of fighting for "national sovereignty" by the Brazilian 
elite creates the illusion that the government is in conflict with 
international capital and even Big Tech, while in reality it is making 
significant investments in these groups. One example of this is the 
incentive to implement data centers beyond the 188 already existing in 
the country. The Workers' Party government already has a proposed tax 
exemption policy, ReData, to attract these companies, which are known 
for their high energy and water consumption. The US government's 
objective is economic and imperialist. If necessary, they will dismiss 
Bolsonaro to please Big Tech or harm the BRICS in some way. So far, 
there is no indication that the international alliance of the far right 
will keep Trump on a leash or guarantee his unconditional support. With 
the tariffs, the Brazilian bourgeoisie takes advantage of the situation 
to implement layoffs and receive state aid, while food prices rise in 
the US. Ultimately, our people lose here and the American people lose 
there, proving that there is no winner from below in the disputes of 
those at the top.

Our response to imperialist exploitation must be an alliance among the 
oppressed people: those who have no nation, no borders, only their 
internationalist solidarity. It is essential that this stagnation in the 
streets be broken by popular organization, denouncing the agreements of 
the global elites. Although there is a sense of celebration in seeing 
the former president cornered after years of impunity, his arrest is yet 
another illusion of bourgeois justice. The sword of bourgeois justice 
does not cut one's own flesh.

Repression selects the coup plotters to contain the undesirable or 
uncontrollable within Bolsonarism, but, by its very logic, it also 
advances a penal apparatus to discipline all forms of social protest. We 
certainly want Justice, Memory, and Truth, and we unite with the entire 
popular movement so that Bolsonaro and the other coup plotters do not 
gain impunity, but let us not be fooled by the circumstances. The 
judiciary is a conservative element of bourgeois political power whose 
function is to accommodate all social conflicts to the rules of the 
system's game. The military personnel who carried Bolsonarism on their 
shoulders remain unpunished, as does the military, which has never been 
held accountable for its crimes during the Corporate-Military 
Dictatorship. Furthermore, Bolsonaro's allies in Congress continue 
pursuing their anti-people agendas, governing within conservative 
policies that attack the freedoms of social minorities.

In the fight against Bolsonarism, many different positions may coincide, 
but full vigilance is needed to prevent this from becoming a kind of 
progressive capitulation to neoliberalism; to prevent it from becoming a 
programmatic retreat and subordination of unions, social movements, and 
socialist organizations to the agendas dictated by the state's ruling 
elites and bourgeois sectors.

The fiscal framework was the PT government's way of governing in 
negotiations with sectors of the Brazilian elite, cutting everything 
possible from public budget spending and social policies. Thus, it's 
possible to spend all this money on banks through public debt, accepting 
the burden of breaking the fiscal framework when it needs to be breached 
to ensure the health of agro-exporting or industrial businesses. The 
government doesn't even consider changing this because it's completely 
entangled in agreements with the right-wing, centrist, agro-political 
caucus, and financial speculation sectors. The fiscal framework has 
guided most political and economic decisions, a continuation of the 
spending cap approved during the Temer administration - then harshly 
criticized by the Workers' Party (PT), who were then in opposition.

The plebiscite, an important form of popular consultation, calls for 
taxing the rich and ending the 6-for-1 scale, but it doesn't bring the 
fiscal framework into the debate, shielding the government from having 
to discuss an anti-people instrument that supports its agreements with 
elite sectors. The plebiscite can be a tool for dialogue between 
grassroots movements and sectors of the people, bringing the debate on 
taxing the rich and ending this exploitative labor regime closer to the 
daily lives of popular organizations. However, the fiscal framework must 
be integrated into the discourse surrounding this grassroots 
construction of plebiscites, putting pressure on the Workers' Party 
government and sectors of the left who fear clashing with the country's 
elites due to the electoral theater.

Nothing can be done today within bourgeois democracy that will guarantee 
any victory for the oppressed classes in 2026. The path to a dignified 
life is popular organization, with direct democracy, fraternal dialogue, 
and actions built collectively with our peers in the workplaces and 
homes, in our territories. We must increase pressure on this government, 
which has offered very little to those below, without fear of the far right.

The current situation makes it urgent that our dreams regain their value 
and drive our actions, with the haste of those who seek their own 
survival in times of climate crisis. Build now what we want for the future!

Brazilian Anarchist Coordination

August 2025

https://cabanarquista.com.br/analise-de-conjuntura-cab-agosto-2025/
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