The Brazilian government has come clean on its relationship with Embraer thanks to Boeing’s takeover overtures. President Michel Temer said that under no circumstances would the country give up control of the company, which is also its primary defence contractor. His defence minister Raul Jungmann was even more direct. “No country in the world would release its grasp on control of a company like (Embraer). It has a nucleus of defence that is inalienable,” Jungmann told reporters in Brasilia.
That puts a different light on Embraer’s consistent complaints about the Canadian government undue influence over Bombardier, which it claims gets unfair subsidies from Ottawa. To the best of our knowledge, the federal government has never vetoed a business decision by Bombardier in the name of national sovereignty and defence, however. Boeing is apparently trying to soothe the concerns in Brasilia in its pursuit of the planemaker.