As you may have seen in the news, the G7 pledged to support Brazil's efforts to fight wildfires in the Amazon rain forest but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's has refused their support for purely emotional reasons and will not accept support until French President Emmanuel Macron apologizes for threatening to scuttle a trade deal over Bolsonaro's environmental policies.
Brazil's farmers supported Bolsonaro's candidacy because he pledged to roll back environmental regulations, but now they're not so sure it was worth it.
Farmers are afraid they may lose access to critical foreign markets because they elected a jackass.
From Bloomberg:
With the world’s largest rainforest ablaze, prominent representatives of the sector are sounding the alarm, saying farmers’ hard-won reputation for sustainability is in jeopardy and, in turn, their exports to conscientious consumers. Among lower-house lawmakers from the farm caucus surveyed by Ibope this month, 80% think illegal deforestation is already hurting Brazil’s image and business.
Finland, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, even raised the idea of banning Brazilian meat imports on Friday in response to Bolsonaro’s lax stewardship of the Amazon.
The European Union ranks second only to China as the final destination of Brazil’s agriculture exports, and accounted for 16% of the shipments in 2018. Brazil exported $13.6 billion in agricultural products to the region last year.
Roberto Brant, the agriculture confederation’s president and a former lawmaker, called on producers to loudly counter Bolsonaro’s damaging statements. And Senator Katia Abreu, a former agriculture minister, said she’s very afraid Brazil will lose European markets. “Farmers are being deceived,” she told Estado de S. Paulo. “They may be happy today, and they will be crying tomorrow.”
It's somehow both comforting and terrifying that we're not the only nation in the world full of self-interested business voters who still can't see five feet in front of their own faces in the 21st century.
I get it. Businesses hate regulations, but there's no regulation on earth that's more damaging to business than literally losing your business.
If this were America, I'd say they voted for Bolsanaro to 'own the libs.'