I guess most by now are aware of President Dilma Rousseff's postponed 'insert air quotes here' trip to the USA. I say this because she has been under a lot of pressure from Brazilians. She has been criticized that her government's response to the NSA/US spying on brazilians/the brazilian government and its institutions has been lack lustered/lacking substance. So it was with no surprise to me the she canceled the trip (add wink and a smile here). So when she says she is postponing her trip it comes off as her just going through the motions of being outraged, "I'm outraged I tell ya" (translate to portuguese)
Ms Rousseff's state visit was to have started on 23 October and would have been the first by a Brazilian president since 1995.
But in a statement on Tuesday, the Brazilian government said that "given the proximity of the scheduled state visit to Washington - and in the absence of a timely investigation of the incident, with corresponding explanations and the commitment to cease the interception activities" it could not go ahead as planned.
The statement said Brazil hoped the visit would take place "as soon as possible", once the issue had been "resolved properly".
My sense is she does not want to necessarily make waves with the USA, but at the same time wants to be seen as a strong leader standing up to the US at home (this is what brazilians are demanding). They see this as an attack on their country, to the level of possible espionage.
Now the last development which I think see the real fallout. It something that may have occurred anyway but this gives the impetus for this to occur sooner. That is the restructuring of the internet infrastructure.
Brazil data plan aims to keep US spies at bay
Right now a lot of the internet infrastucture is controlled by the US. What Brazil is now planning to do is construct a 'Brics cable' that bypasses the US and goes to Africa and Asia. Now this in itself will not prevent NSA/USA from getting to international internet traffic. There is no guarantee that the data from any one search from South America or Brazil will 100% be directed through this cable. The protocols for the transit of data is complex, yet I see this as the beginning of a trend.This may be the beginning of the restructuring of the internet.
Brazil also plans to/is proposing to requiring internet firms to base / operate their data centers in Brazil and be subject to local privacy laws. This too may have limited effect, because the US has found ways around this as stated in the article eg. In the EU. Do you see a trend developing?
Brazil's IT policy secretary Virgilio Almeida has suggested that internet firms would have to operate data centres in the country, which would make them subject to local privacy laws.
There is this trend developing from the loss business of IT cloud services in the US to EU or anywhere else but USA counterparts, lost thrust of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T. The fall out from the Edward Snowden leaks have been huge. We have entered a new age of the internet. Who knows what it will look like in the coming years, but one thing is for sure. It won't be the same.
Update:Another article detailing the growing distrust between US and Brazil, and even more fallout.
For its part, Washington hoped that rolling out the red carpet for Rousseff would help bend her ear on several issues, above all in securing better access for U.S. firms to a huge market with 200 million increasingly voracious consumers.
Because of high tariffs, Brazil has the most closed economy to trade in the Western Hemisphere. When U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited in May, he urged Brazil to drop those barriers if it wants to become a strategic U.S. ally.
"It's up to Brazil to decide whether to pursue this path and seize the opportunities," Biden said.
In retrospect, that comment may have reflected an issue that has plagued Brazil-U.S. ties: Unrealistic expectations.
Like most Brazilian politicians, Rousseff harbors a deep mistrust of free trade, particularly on Washington's terms. On several occasions, she has accused the United States of unfairly boosting its exports through expansionary monetary policy.