The Industry Coalition, an association of 14 business entities, warned that imports from countries with “predatory trade practices” threaten investments for national companies of approximately R$826 billion by 2027. The Brazilian Foreign Trade Association (Associação de Comércio Exterior do Brasil) ( AEB), one of the group’s members, predicts a deficit of US$ 135 billion in the Brazilian trade balance in 2024. The numbers were presented yesterday (25), in São Paulo, at an event promoted by Coalização Indústria. 
In a note, the group of entities, responsible for 43% of the industrial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with companies in the civil construction, transformation and foreign trade sectors, points out that “the geopolitical transformations in the post-pandemic and the need to dispose of gigantic excess of installed production capacity accentuated flows of products from these countries, worsening the attack on domestic markets”.
In the coalition’s assessment, Brazilian industry is “under attack”. Leader Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, coordinator of the Coalition, provided an example with the case of China. “Due to what we are calling the Chinese invasion, which are predatory imports from China, we are experiencing a state policy that aims to dispose of the gigantic excess of idle production capacity that exists in that country. And for this objective, all conditions are sought, such as price reductions, exports with negative margins, bringing all this damage that we are experiencing here. Again, the industry is under attack.”
For Mello Lopes, the government must take strategic measures within foreign trade rules to face the “attack”, as other countries have done. He highlighted that investments at risk of suspension are essential for the country’s growth in a “sustained and sustainable way in the long term”, and are not “subject to replacement by other economic segments, the public sector or other exporting countries”.
The Industry Coalition was created in 2018 and presents itself as non-partisan and representative of 13 industry sectors. These are areas of the country’s economy that account for 57% of manufactured exports, generating 37 million direct and indirect jobs and responsible for the annual payment of R$264 billion in taxes.
