Brazil must present its name for the presidency of the IDB, says Guedes

Brazil should present a name to occupy the presidency of the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) within the next two weeks, said this Tuesday (11) the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes.

If approved, the nominee will be the first Brazilian in office and will replace Mauricio Claver-Carone, the president who was unanimously removed at the end of September, accused of having an intimate relationship with a member of his team.

After the removal, Claver-Carone nominally accused Guedes of having threatened to turn Brazil against him if he did not give up positions in the institution.

“Brazil wanted vice-presidency positions. If I didn’t name specific people, they would be against it. I voted against it, because frankly they weren’t qualified people for those positions, and they declared war on me,” he said in an interview last month.

Guedes countered the accusations on Tuesday. He denied having asked for positions and stated that “any name he has nominated would be more qualified than him”.

Claver-Carone was a senior director of the US National Security Council when he was appointed to the post of head of the IDB by then-President Donald Trump in 2020.

At the time, Brazil had the encouragement of other countries on the continent to present a candidacy, and the name of Marcos Troyjo (now president of the New Development Bank) and banker Rodrigo Xavier were raised, supported by Guedes.

The Brazilian government, however, withdrew from nominating anyone to the post after Trump directly asked President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to support the American – in what was seen at the time as a defeat for Guedes by Itamaraty, then led by Ernesto Araújo. Colombia also supported Trump’s nomination, in a bloc of right-aligned presidents.

The arrival of Claver-Carone to power, which was opposed by Argentina and Mexico, broke a six-decade tradition in which the institution was headed by a Latin American. The love scandal that removed him from office, however, was the trigger after a series of wear and tear on the American, who had a bad relationship with Argentine authorities and with Guedes himself.

This Tuesday, the Brazilian minister stated that it was Claver-Carone who offered positions in exchange for support. “He was fighting for his life, he who offered a lot of positions trying to talk to me,” he said.

Guedes said he suggested two people at the request of the institution’s president. “He asked like this: ‘I want a private banker’. I sent a guy who was president of a large Brazilian bank. He asked, and I sent people more qualified than him. when he came back he said: ‘I don’t work with this guy, no, he’s a disqualified'”, said the minister, without naming names.

With the removal of Claver-Carone before the end of his five-year term, the window opened again for a Brazilian name – the Joe Biden administration should not nominate anyone for the position.

To journalists, Guedes did not want to say who will appoint the post, but stated that it will be someone with experience both in public management and in the private sector.

This Tuesday, the minister met with representatives of the bank in Washington. He denied that he had gone to campaign for a Brazilian president, and said he went there “to clarify exactly where Brazil stands”—namely, that the next president stay in office for only a five-year term, that he be Latino. and who has experience in the public and private sector.

Guedes is in town to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This Tuesday, he also met with businessmen at the United States Chamber of Commerce. The list included executives from FedEx, PepsiCo, Pfizer, WestRock, Cargill and ExxonMobil, among others. The ambassador of Brazil, Nestor Forster, also participated in the event.