Brazil: Answering the Big Lie

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Brazil's leftists and ultranationalists make it an article of faith that foreign investors take more money out of Brazil in profits than they put into the country. This myth persists despite a recent Brazilian law that prohibits overseas profits remittances of more than 10% of invested capital; in practice, actual remittances average only about 2.7%. But the attacks run on, noisily spearheaded by President Joao Goulart's leftist, demagogic brother-in-law, Leonel Brizola. Last week outspoken U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon went before 600 U.S. and Brazilian businessmen in Sao Paulo to answer what he called the "big lie." The only way to combat the big lie, said Gordon, is by "restating, and repeatedly, the big truth." Gordon's biggest truth about foreign investment: "With few exceptions, it is devoted to producing goods and services in Brazil rather than for export, and the vast majority of the income produced remains in Brazil."