Brazil shoots itself in the foot by nominating IDB candidate, says ousted president who accuses Guedes

Economy Minister Paulo Guedes shoots himself in the foot by betting on a Brazilian for the presidency of the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank), says Maurício Claver-Carone, head of the institution until September, when he was deposed accused of being involved with a subordinate—which he denies.

Claver-Carone says he fell after denying positions requested by Guedes at the institution. On Tuesday, Guedes countered the accusations (which Carone had already made on Colombian TV last month) and called the former IDB president disqualified.

THE SheetClaver-Carone says that Brazil has lost an ally in the bank and that it will not be able to appoint any other president, since the countries in the region, mostly led by leftist governments, will not support a candidate proposed by the Jair Bolsonaro administration (PL ).

Sought this Thursday (13), the Brazilian Ministry of Economy says that the Claver-Carone contract was terminated after the unanimous recommendation of the organization’s board, “referred to in a vote of the bank’s governors, in response to the conclusions of an independent investigation carried out by regarding serious ethical violations while he held the presidency of the institution”.

Through its advisory, the ministry declined to comment on the other statements made to the Sheet.

An ally of former US President Donald Trump and director of Western Hemisphere affairs at the White House National Security Council, Claver-Carone reached the presidency of the IDB in 2020, after the Republican directly asked Bolsonaro to support the American.

He says his ouster only took place because he is close to Trump and that there was pressure from the White House.

Mr. stated that he fell for retaliation by Brazil for denying positions at the IDB to Minister Paulo Guedes. He claims the accusations are false and that Mr. offered jobs to save himself. What is true in this story? I never planned to run for president of the IDB. When I was in the White House under the Trump administration, they were looking for good candidates. In December 2019, I met Guedes at the US Chamber of Commerce and told him to suggest a name because we were all for a Brazilian candidate. One of my duties was to improve relations between Brazil and the USA.

But he took too long. He was not very familiar with international rules and took a long time not to suggest any candidates.

2020 arrives and we said that this had to happen, that we were wasting time. In March, he suggested Marcos Troyjo. The problem with Troyjo is that he was very identified with China, so today he is in the New Development Bank. [banco dos Brics]. We said we weren’t comfortable with it and asked for another name.

Then there was the meeting in Mar-a-Lago [entre Trump e Bolsonaro] it’s him [Guedes] it was not. We said we needed a candidate soon because, if not, Argentines would run. Finally, at the end of April, he nominated banker Rodrigo Xavier, who was an excellent person, obviously qualified, but nobody knew him. How are you going to get someone like that elected? Especially in the midst of tensions with Argentina and in the midst of Covid-19, where it was not possible to travel.

With these two options, many countries asked me to run. Guedes continued to press for his candidates, but President Trump asked Bolsonaro to support me, which he did.

I took over in October 2020. Since taking over, I had the intention of having someone from Brazil on my team. I suggested Alexandre Tombini [presidente do Banco Central no governo Dilma Rousseff]. Guedes said not at all. I said that I knew he had served in the Dilma government, but that he was a technocrat, not ideological. Guedes denied it and said he would suggest other names.

He took too long again and suggested two names. One was Carlos da Costa [ex-BNDES], which he insisted a lot on, and I honestly didn’t feel comfortable. When I said no, he suggested Martha Seillier [secretária do Programa de Parcerias e Investimentos do governo]. We started talking, I thought it would work and I offered her the position, but she didn’t want to give up her position in the Brazilian government, which would be against IDB rules, even for a sabbatical period, because it would be a conflict of interest.

Then they appointed her as Brazil’s representative at the bank and opened war against me. Guedes made it very clear. I remember when I went to São Paulo [em junho de 2021] and he said to me, “If I don’t have this vacancy for this person, this vacancy for this person and this vacancy for this person, we’re not going to support you.” I said I didn’t do favors.

Besides Guedes, what was your relationship like with other members of the government? Why did Brazil support your election? It was great. I got on well with everyone, President Bolsonaro, all the ministers, the president of the Central Bank. But Paulo Guedes, no.

Mr. he didn’t get along well with Guedes, or with the Argentines or the Mexicans. why mr. made so many enemies? I did not do. There are 26 countries in the region. I had the support of 23. Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, for 62 years, controlled the bank. I wanted to support smaller countries. So I appointed a vice president from Ecuador, one from Paraguay, one from Honduras. Most bank countries are small and have no power.

The reality is that Brazil does not need the bank, it is the largest economy in the region. Neither does Mexico. Argentina unfortunately needs it, because it has mismanaged the economy. But where the bank can have a big impact and actually help is in small countries, which have always been ignored.

like mr. describe your mandate? I am a liberal economist who believes in the free market, like Guedes. My tenure at the IDB was the most successful in the bank’s history. Last year, we raised $23.5 billion in funding. Before that, the maximum had been US$ 17 billion. I achieved this without raising capital, just optimizing the balance sheet, with more efficiency and mobilizing more resources from the private sector. The results speak for themselves and no one can take that away from me.

What bothers me about Paulo Guedes is that, as a liberal free-marketer, I always thought he was intellectually honest. And he always tried to threaten me by saying that if he didn’t get this or that, he would look for funding in China. He should have been an ally, but instead he turned out to be a very narrow-minded person, and all he wanted was positions.

Brazil did not vote for my deposition because it disagreed with me, my policies or my way of thinking. He voted because he wanted to have a Brazilian president. But the reality Guedes doesn’t understand is that he’s doing President Bolsonaro a disservice. Because a Brazilian candidate has no chance of winning.

The election for the IDB will be in November. Regardless of who wins on October 30 in Brazil, you will still have most countries in the region with left-wing, socialist presidents. Why would they support a Bolsonaro candidate? Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, no country will support a Bolsonaro candidate. And, if Lula wins, she won’t take over until January 1st, when the IDB elections will have passed. In the end, it was a shot in the foot.

I was Brazil’s greatest ally. And now they will have an IDB president who is not Brazilian and who does not agree with the economic policies of the Bolsonaro government.

And the accusations that Mr. Did you get involved with someone in his office? The report found no evidence of a current relationship between me and my chief of staff. What the report says is that there was before I entered the bank, when the rules didn’t even apply to me, based on documents submitted by her ex-husband in the divorce, which were proven to be liars. More importantly, bank rules prohibit a current relationship, and the report does not show any current relationship.

Mr. Is he still close to former President Trump? Clear.

Could this have been important in your deposition? Yup. On all sides, there are many stories of misconduct by my predecessors. Real stories, not defamatory stories like mine. If I hadn’t worked in the Trump administration before, no one would care.

This is a bank that, 20 years ago, had a historic bribery scandal for infrastructure projects. This bank is plagued by corruption, clientelism, I’ve had to stop projects because of integrity issues. This is the only financial institution in the world that in 2008 and 2009 was exposed to subprimes, because it was managed very poorly.

And now I’m fired without cause, without proving a single rule I’ve broken. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t worked with President Trump.

Mr. Do you believe the Biden administration played a role in his dismissal? Certainly. They led the efforts. When I ran for the presidency of the IDB, Biden was campaigning for the US presidency and they were already speaking out against me, working against me all along. One day they called some of the countries that were my main allies and pressed them against me.

what mr. will you do now? They can’t say they fired me because I did a bad job. My contract says I could be fired without cause, that’s what happened. And you can fire me because you don’t like me, because I’m an American, and you think an American shouldn’t run the bank, because I worked for President Trump, because I’m a Republican, because I’m an anti-Communist Cuban-American from Miami. Everything is fine. But no one has the right to defame me. That’s why I’m in this fight, and I will continue. My lawyers are preparing a case in court, I’m going to the courts. I won’t let the bank get away with it. At the end of the day, the ends do not justify the means.