Barack Obama he didn´t hide behind a finger and didn´t even mince words: “These – he articulated during the week referring to Brazil, China and India – are countries with a huge population and an emerging middle class. We want them to spend their money here".
From Cinderella's castle, in the Walt Disney amusement park in Orlando, visited last Thursday, the American president announced wanting to increase the granting of visas for Chinese and Brazilian citizens by 40% this year. The goal therefore is to immediately reduce the queues at the consulates, speed up the issuing times and streamline the bureaucracy.
The announcement came from Florida, one of the favorite states of Brazilian tourists: it is relatively close, there is a strong Latin atmosphere, it is full of attractions, but above all it allows you to go shopping at a bargain price compared to Brazil, where the very high taxes charged on consumer products often double or triple the prices: come on clothing to electronics, passing through perfumes, for rich Brazilians it is almost always cheaper to find a flight on offer, spend a few days in Miami and go shopping stars and stripes rather than shopping in the malls of Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo.
According to the US Department of Commerce, tourists Brazilians are in third place among the most spenders (4.236 dollars each) for a total expenditure of almost six billion dollars in 2010.
A river of money that makes a very convenient for the United States in times of economic crisis. And so, if up until yesterday the American bureaucracy was trying to curb the entry of Brazilians into the country (the green-and-gold also need a visa to enter Mexico since from there many then try to cross the border with the USA illegally) today Obama frees everyone.
In fact, every 85 tourists, it has been calculated that a job is created. And if in 2011 the US issued 820 thousand visas, the forecast for 2013 is to grant 1 million 800 thousand. Currently only 5% of requests are rejected. In Sao Paulo, to speed up bureaucracy, the number of employees at the consulate with stars and stripes will double, from 49 to 100.
The long lines will likely continue, but at least you won't have to wait 69 days to make an appointment anymore. Children under 14 and over 80 will be exempt from the interview (which will remain necessary for everyone else), as well as those who will have to renew a visa that has expired for less than a year.
At the moment, citizens of 36 countries, from Europe to Japan, via Australia, can enter the US without a tourist visa. But in the new plan for the revival of tourism proposed by Obama, new exemptions could come not only for Brazilians, but also for Argentines, Chileans, Poles and Taiwanese. How do you say pecunia non olet in English?
