100 days of Jair Bolsonaro: The economy

Jair Bolsonaro was elected Brazil’s 38th president and given a huge responsibility: to make the country grow again and avoid the state going bankrupt. This significant task has been delegated to his Minister of the Economy, Paulo Guedes, who has been regarded by investors as the administration’s most precious asset thanks to his ultra-libertarian philosophy. In less than two months, Mr. Guedes and his team presented their proposal for a grand overhaul of the Brazilian pension system—a reform on which the country’s economy depends.

Paulo Guedes had the option to tweak the reform bill Michel Temer submitted while still in office. Instead, he chose to draft his own bill from scratch, pushing the legislative process back to square one. The minister may have underestimated the government’s inability to negotiate with Congress—but now he realizes how politics can get in the way.

But Mr. Guedes’ agenda is not limited to the pension reform. Privatizations, reducing the size of the state, fighting fraud in the social security system, and opening up Brazil’s economy to world trade were high on the list of priorities. Where does the administration stand on its first economic promises?

An economy in agony

Brazil grew only 1.1 percent in 2018 and the first numbers of 2019 are not much better. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) reported that Brazil’s industry grew by only 0.7 percent between January and February, below the already low expectations of 1 percent. Unemployment remains rampant, while consumer and business confidence is falling.

What to expect

“The first days of the Jair Bolsonaro administration were worse than we thought. We expected an adaptation phase, but what we see is...