Ford’s Exit Foretells Brazil’s Troubles
If Latin America’s biggest economy wants to create jobs for the future, it needs to trade in its old developmental model for a new one.
No more jobs, but lots of memories.
Photographer: Joel Auerbach/Getty Images South AmericaWhen Ford Motor Company announced it was shuttering its operations in Brazil this week, the reaction was swift and shrill. Adversaries of President Jair Bolsonaro were quick to blame official neglect and ineptitude, to the delight of cartoonists and social media warriors. Bolsonaro faulted decades of dirigisme and accused Ford of plumping for subsidies, even as the Economy Ministry scolded the automaker on Twitter for snubbing the “strong recovery” ostensibly already under way.
Ford was one of South America’s pioneer multinationals, setting up its first assembly line for the Model T in Brazil in 1919 and full-scale manufacturing plants in 1953. The brand, often feted by national leaders, has been synonymous with Brazil’s leap into the industrial age, a badge of progress for an awakening mass consumer society in a continental country. So why walk away from the second biggest market in the Americas, with a 58-million strong car park and a nation bound by ribbons of road — never mind why forsake Brazil for historical rival and recidivist economic deadbeat Argentina?