Trump proposes adding Brazil to NATO as full fledged Member; Establishment confused

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The Trump-Bolsonaro meeting seems to have signaled a big realignment of some kind — that NATO proposition was definitely a bolt out of the blue, and quite possibly a message to Germany to shape up or get dwarfed.

At a minimum, the meeting signaled that the U.S. has suddenly gotten a bigfoot new ally, one of the vaunted BRICs, actually, blowing apart the establishment-lefty view that the BRICs are striking out on their own and rising together. (In the past, we'd see pictures like this to demonstrate the hype). Actually, Brazil has much more to gain in a tag-team relationship with the U.S. than it does hanging around with messed-up countries such as Russia, or nasty, economically battered tyrannies such as China.

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quote:

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President Trump held his first joint press conference with Brazil's awesome new conservative president, Jair Bolsonaro, and threw out the bombshell idea of making Brazil a full member of NATO.

It was a head-turner, because up until now, the functionality of the U.S.-Brazil relationship has always revolved around assorted trade spats, and now the disintegration of Venezuela, which is situated between the two giants.

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I kind of like it.

Some stats:

Brazil is #11 on total military expenditures at 29.3 Billion, but is only 1.4% of GDP, but has been trending upward.
The only current NATO members with higher military spending are France (6), UK (7), and Germany (9).
Brazil still practices conscription, periods of 9-12 months.
Active personnel 384,000 (14th largest)
Reserves: 1.6 M (5th largest)
Notable firms with military production: Embraer, Avibras, CBC (one of the largest ammo mfg in the world).
Last war: WW2. Sent 25,000 soldiers who fought in Italy, France, and Germany. It was the only independent S American nation to send ground troops, losing almost 1000 soldiers KIA in the war.