The economy is wide open to the outside world without any protection for the country, says Pochmann.

By Marcio Pochmann, in Rebuildables - Under the Temer government, the surrender of Brazil has become continuous, and the inflow of foreign investment is fundamentally directed towards the purchase of national assets, both public and private. This is the third time that the national economy has opened up to the outside world, and once again without any prior development strategy, as previously observed.

The first wave of internationalization of the Brazilian economy since the 1930 Revolution took place in the second half of the 1950s, in accordance with JK's Goals Plan (1956–1961). With the large influx of foreign capital, the country significantly advanced its industrialization through the establishment of large economic groups, initially European and, later, American.

Given the coordination of the State, foreign investments were combined with the sum of internal resources derived from national and state private capital. Thus, the automotive industry, for example, established itself without bringing its auto parts, since this would be handled by companies with national capital, while other industrial components would be offered by state-owned companies (steel mills).

The second wave of internationalization was a hallmark of the 1990s, with Brazil's entry into globalization. With neoliberal reforms coinciding with the monetary stabilization of the Real Plan, the national economy recorded 2,3 mergers and acquisitions, 61% of which were the responsibility of foreign capital.

The acquisition of a large number of national companies by foreign companies did not signify an expansion of production capacity, since a considerable part of the investments was fundamentally directed only towards the exchange of assets from one economic group to another. In other words, a certain passive and subordinate entry of Brazil into globalization.

In the 2000s, the country experienced an unprecedented situation, with significant activity from national companies in developing their operations abroad across various sectors (such as beverages, food, construction, clothing, banking, tools, among others). In the first decade of this century, the internationalization of large Brazilian companies reached 17 countries, while between 2010 and 2015, growth increased by 50%, reaching 27 countries worldwide.

With the recession, Operation Lava Jato, and the dismantling operations of the Temer government, several Brazilian groups began to put their assets up for sale. Mergers and acquisitions alone grew by 73,6% in the first half of 2017.

In this context, the third wave of internationalization, detached from any development strategy, is expanding in Brazil. The recent announcement of the privatization of the state-owned productive sector by the Temer government demonstrates much more the unpreparedness and desperation to attract external resources in an economy weakened by the force of the recession.

The decline in the aggregate investment rate is not even greater due to the inflow of foreign capital, which is approaching one-fifth of Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). With the possibilities of land acquisition, the internationalization of national assets becomes even more attractive, making Brazil a country of large-scale business deals detached from the well-being of its population.