Brazil is trying to rebuild its industry. Can it succeed? This Friday (Feb. 27), the government renews its push by unveiling new investments under Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB). Expectations point to an ambitious reindustrialization agenda — and an effort to place manufacturing back at the center of the country’s growth strategy.
Brazil lost the engine that propelled it between 1930 and 1980. What followed were years of hyperinflation, successive fiscal adjustments, battles against high interest rates and the gradual dismantling of classic industrial policy tools. The outcome, as Brazil Stock Guide has highlighted, has been a marked trend toward re-primarization in this century: agriculture, iron ore and oil gained weight in exports, while manufacturing steadily shrank as a share of GDP.
What instruments would underpin a revival? From a developmentalist perspective, the toolkit is familiar: calibrated import tariffs for strategic sectors, official export credit, financing for services and high technology, and stronger institutional coordination. There are domestic precedents. The Plano Safra program for agribusiness and the structured regulatory framework for the pre-salt oil sector show how long-term policies can create predictability. The question is whether industry will receive a similarly stable framework — and enough macroeconomic consistency — to attract productive capital.
The external backdrop has grown more complicated. China has consolidated its position as the world’s largest manufacturing powerhouse, built on scale and long-term industrial planning. The United States, after decades of liberal primacy, is responding. Donald Trump has championed the reshoring of factories and jobs, while regulatory uncertainty persists: geopolitical pressures hint at tougher trade barriers, yet recent Supreme Court decisions blocking tariffs have muddied the landscape. For Brazil — once a relevant supplier of manufactured goods to the U.S. — this could represent either risk or an opening for strategic realignment.
Industrial rebuilding is rarely linear. Competing with China requires productivity gains and integration into sophisticated global value chains. Engaging with the U.S. may offer market access — or expose Brazil to political volatility. Nova Indústria Brasil could mark the beginning of a gradual shift toward greater technological density. Or it may simply rearrange incentives in an increasingly fragmented global economy. The outcome remains open. It will depend on execution, macroeconomic credibility and the ability to translate policy tools into durable competitiveness.
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