Brazil has supported claims by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez that the USA is blocking the sale of Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft to the Venezuelan air force, writes Graham Warwick.
“There are signs of this. I hope they are not definitive,” Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said last week after Chavez accused Washington of blocking a $110 million order for Super Tucanos announced last year.
A contract for the first 12 of a planned 24 Super Tucanos to replace Venezuela’s Rockwell OV-10 Bronco counter-insurgency aircraft has yet to be signed. Embraer declines to comment, but a senior industrial source says there is a “virtual embargo” on the deal because of the aircraft’s US content.
The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages foreign military sales transactions, says Venezuela is not subject to an arms embargo, but could be feeling the effects of sanctions brought on by the country’s reported non-compliance with the US Trafficking in Persons Act.
Source: Flight International
