Brazil truckers vow to strike despite concessions

Truck drivers in Brazil say they will go ahead with a planned strike on 21 May, even after the government announced a series of measures aimed at averting the protest.

Officials from the infrastructure ministry said on 16 April the government would free up R2bn ($510mn) for the expansion and paving of the country's highways and had earmarked R500mn in credit for independent truckers.

The government also reiterated its plan to issue a so-called trucker-card, aimed at shielding truckers from volatility in fuel prices. But details were sparse.

Some leaders of Brazil's May 2018 truckers' strike, which caught the nation by surprise and inflicted widespread disruptions to food and fuel distribution, were quick to respond on their social media networks. They called the latest government's concessions a "smoke screen" and said that a new strike would go ahead as planned.

In addition to lower diesel prices, the truckers are also demanding that the government increase oversight of the minimum freight rates. Underscoring President Jair Bolsonaro's concerns over averting a national truckers' strike as his economic team tries to shepherd a major pension reform through congress, the president asked for the state-controlled oil company Petrobras to temporarily suspend a price increase in wholesale diesel that it was planning last week.

The government has since stressed that it will not interfere in Petrobras' fuel pricing policies after the market punished the company's stock earlier in the week.