With their Anglosphere friends, a bunch of irresponsible boys playing computer games with their expensive toys have done lots of damage to Canada's relations with Brazil. After years of childish confrontation around planes, beef and petty criminal affairs and thanks to a large diplomatic effort, the bilateral relationship had become "normal." Two countries with distinct outlooks and increasingly divergent paths in global arenas (Brazil up, Canada down) were finding ways to work together in a variety of fields, while investments and trade, in both directions, were increasing, sometimes significantly.
The spying scandal matters, but not because that relationship is important for either country. Notwithstanding the hues and cries of the Globe and Mail, trade with Brazil remains marginal for Canada, representing less than 1% of this country's imports and exports (see the graph below). Don't get sidetracked by the big numbers: trade with Brazil was worth $6.5bn in 2012 (down 2.7% from 2011, by the way), but in a sea of $916bn, this is nothing. Investment is a similar story. Don't let the number of companies involved fool you: most of the value is linked to a very small number of investments. Were Vale to sell Inco--which they would do for economic not political reasons--Brazil would disappear from the top ranks of foreign investors in this country.
In fact, it is the very thinness of the relationship that makes this scandal so damaging: with so little at stake, good will and trust become critical, and this is what has been damaged here. From that standpoint, in other words, tapping Paulo Cordeiro's phone is at least as bad as penetrating the mining ministry's computers, for he was as good a friend of Canada as you would find in Brazil's diplomatic service. If he could be treated like this, everybody is fair game.
Manners matter where stakes are low. Obviously, manners have never been the forte of the gaming crowd…
