US Senators Call Amazon Fires a National Security Crisis

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Last month the Amazon region made headline news around the globe, due to the extensive burning of the largest contiguous tropical forest in the world. Foreign media flocked to cities inside the forest to report on the devastation.

The Brazilian government was strongly criticized for not doing more to halt the burnings, most of which were thought to be set by farmers seeking to clear land for crops and cattle. Most of the criticism came from European countries, with the United States government remaining conspicuously quiet about the matter.

U.S. President Donald Trump offered his nation’s help in trying to control the fires, but did not criticize or censure the government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

But while the Trump Administration was silent about the thousands of acres burned, a group of U.S. Senators are now seeking to hold the Brazilian government accountable for not doing more to stop the deforestation.

“The lungs of the world are still on fire in the Amazon rainforest, and American citizens and policymakers cannot let this climate catastrophe continue unabated. If the White House refuses to act, the U.S. Senate will,” says an op-ed essay written for NBC News by Democratic Senators Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy earlier this month.

According to the lawmakers, the fires in the Amazon region should be considered a US national security crisis, and as such the US should halt military exercises regularly held with troops from both countries.

“Our Air Forces and Navies have long participated in joint exercises in the region, including training programs that Brazil is newly eligible to participate in, as a major non-NATO ally,” explained Schatz and Murphy.

The two, along with a group of Democrats, believe that the North American country should stop any business with Brazil until Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro takes action to stop farmers and loggers from setting fires to clear out land in the Amazon region.

The senators also asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to halt any talks to resume Brazil’s beef exports to the U.S. Brazilian beef exports to the U.S. were banned in 2017 for sanitary violations, but after the meeting between the two leaders in March, the U.S. agreed to inspect Brazilian meatpackers to allow for the resumption of shipments. These inspections were conducted in June.

“Without stronger protections in place, allowing Brazil’s beef back into U.S. markets will only accelerate the destruction of the Amazon,” the lawmakers argued. The letter was signed by eleven US Senators.

“This is an international crisis with national security implications for the United States,” the senators said in a letter addressed to  Lighthizer. “Absent, meaningful action by President Bolsonaro to protect the Amazon, the United States must make it clear that it will not negotiate with Brazil on trade,” concluded the letter.

A possible trade agreement between the US and Brazil was announced by the Bolsonaro administration in August, two months after the South American country closed a major trade agreement with European countries.

In late June, the European Union and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) finalized trade negotiations which began twenty years ago, in 1999. The European Union, especially France and Germany, however, stipulated conditions for negotiations to advance.

France’s President Macron said that his country would not sign a trade agreement with Brazil if President Bolsonaro withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.

With the burnings in the region, President Macron once again criticized the South American country and questioned whether the EU would ratify the agreement due to Bolsonaro’s stance on preserving the forest.

Although there are no current official trade negotiations between Brazil and the United States, the Bolsonaro administration was quick to hail the US-Brazil bilateral free-trade agreement as a bigger feat than the EU-Mercosur negotiations.

Last week, after meeting with Lighthizer in Washington DC, Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister Ernesto Araújo admitted that the Trump administration still has questions as to whether it should sign a trade agreement with Brazil or with the Mercosur bloc.

Now with Democrats in the US Senate also criticizing President Bolsonaro’s stance on the burnings and deforestation, a trade deal between the two countries seems even further away.