The future of Brazil’s economy lies with one man and it is not president Jair Bolsonaro.
Paulo Guedes has been the architect of desperately needed reforms to aid its struggling economy.
One of Brazil’s free market “Chicago boys” and the student of Milton Friedman, investors hailed the appointment of the economist and banker as Bolsonaro’s finance minister.
The controversial president has delegated almost complete responsibility of plans for a free market transformation to Guedes and Bolsonaro’s popularity was buoyed by signs of an improving economy.
The future was looking brighter for Latin America’s biggest economy until pandemic struck.
Covid-19 has threatened to wreck Guedes’ plans for the economy and confirmed the worst fears about the mercurial Bolsonaro, who is also known as the “Trump of the tropics”.
Latin America has now become the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak and Brazil is seeing the sharpest surge in cases.
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