US action against Pix reflects decay of the Empire, says Professor

The Pix, the instant payment method created by public and favorite servants of Brazilians, also became the target of Donald Trump’s arbitrary attacks. More than an action in defense of its extremist ally, Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the onslaught has clearly commercial nature: it is a way to interfere with a free public tool that has been drawing attention abroad and worries US card and Big Techs companies.

This week, Trump announced the opening of a commercial investigation against Brazil, claiming that PIX – as well as other Brazilian activities and products – allegedly appeared in the list of what he considers as “unfair practices.” The measure comes in the bulge of other attacks by the US government, among which is the taxation in 50% of Brazilian products exported to the US.

“It is a total dismissal, it is an imperialist argument of a decaying empire that can no longer impose its hegemony through technological superiority and seeks to enforce its financial interests,” he says in an interview with Red portalthe professor of the Department of Economics and International Relations (DERI) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Maurício Andrade Weiss.

He recalls that Pix was a very efficient construction of career servers, which became a great success. “With the possibility of installment Pix, not only debit cards, but also credit can lose relevance in Brazil, reducing the potential of gains from US flag cards and social networks that seek to implement means of payment as another form of financial gain,” adds Weiss.

In 2024, according to Federal Government data, the PIX was the fastest growing payment instrument in terms of the number of transactions in the country – the increase was 52%. With this, he answered for almost half (47%) of the total payment transactions (excluded those in kind) performed in Brazil in the last quarter of last year.

According to the Central Bank, Brazilians moved more than R $ 26 trillion in transfers made via Pix over 2024. The BC also points out that just four years after its launch, PIX “is already the most widespread payment among Brazilians”, being used by 76.4% of the population. Then come the debit card (69.1%), money (68.9%) and credit cards (51.6%).

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It is also important to emphasize that as reported by Agência Brasil, published on Saturday (19), PIX has been monitored by the US since 2022. Document of the Office of the United States Commerce Representative (USTR, of English) has revealed three years ago that the country was concerned with the impacts of the popularization of the Brazilian Instant Payment Platform, developed from 2018 and in use since November 2020.

According to USTR’s leading leader Jamieson Greer, the most recently requested investigation by Trump would be intended to ascertain “Brazil’s attacks on American social media companies, as well as other unfair business practices that harm companies, workers, farmers, and technological innovations” from the United States.

BRICS and international transactions

But there are still other uncomfortable points for the US, involving BRICS countries and commercial negotiations between them, which today necessarily undergo mechanisms established from the interests of the large nations of the northern, as well as the use of the dollar itself as currency in international transactions.

This is the case, for example, of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT (SWIFT) – Society for World Interbenial Telecommunications -, a global bank communication system, created in 1973, Belgium, and allowing the exchange of financial messages and the realization of international transfers between institutions and hegemonizes commercial transactions between countries.

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“The Chinese payment system, which has replaced SWIFT, for example, is a significant threat for the US to be able to impose economic sanctions, as it is happening in the Russian case, and Brazil shows interest in participating,” Weiss ponders. He evaluates that Pix technology can complement this system, making the Brazilian mechanism even more potent.

In addition, BRICS has been discussing ways to negotiate with each other with the use of its own currency or that of their respective countries, without the need to depend on the dollar, which obviously goes against the imperialist impetus and US controller.

“We are tired of being subordinated to the north. We want to have independence in our policies, we want to make freer trade and things are happening wonderfully. We are even discussing the possibility of having a coin our own, or perhaps with the coins of each country we have traded without having to use the dollar,” said President Lula in an interview with Jornal Nacional last week, after the letter that Trump announced part of the sanctions.

In this scenario, Professor Weiss also points to the gravity and unprecedented of the interference of one country over another on issues like this. “I am not aware of such interference in the history of the economy. It is a tactic that hurts international laws and even the principle of sovereign states established by the Westphalen Treaty (Vestáflia) in the 17th century,” he says.

For him, the episode shows the need for Brazil to maintain its position harsh and ensure its digital sovereignty. “In addition to ensuring the continuity and expansion of PIX and its means of payment, Brazil should create its own social network and not accept external interference in STF-new regulations on digital media.”

Moreover, he says, “investment in data centers being sought by the farm should be accompanied by data autonomy and not shared with foreign companies. Brazil already has a public database system and needs to expand its infrastructure.”

He also believes that Brazil should bet more on public platforms and stop spending on private. Recent study by researchers from USP and UnB showed that in ten years, the Brazilian public service, in its three spheres (municipal, state and federal) spent R $ 23 billion on foreign technologies in the area of communication and internal systems.