Trucks to the Markets

A big share of U.S. truck exports for 1947 will go to Brazil. Transport-starved Brazilians, who produce a lot of beans and rice but have a hard time getting them to market, hailed the news.

Last week the news became more than a promise. At Santos, four big freighters began unloading the first whopping installment: 4,300 unassembled Fords and G.M.s.

The buying agent for one of the biggest commercial truck deals in automotive history ($100 million for 53,000 trucks) is stocky, tanned Valentim Bouc,as (pronounced Bo-sas), International Business Machines' vice president in Brazil. He has made a fortune for himself and I.B.M. as a supersalesman and for years he has been an unofficial economic adviser to Brazilian Governments. Few businessmen have as many good contacts in Brazil and the U.S.

That was why, when Bouc,as was in the U.S. last January, Brazil's Finance Minister Correia e Castro cabled him so urgently. The Government wanted 50,000 trucks, wanted them fast, and had the dollars to pay for them. In bettered transport it saw a way of moving food from farm to market, and thus of hitting inflation and the black market. The Communists were making hay out of skyrocketing food prices, and the Government was worried.

Bouc,as went to work. The State Department's Will Clayton set up meetings with Detroit big shots, who promised to supply the trucks. Steamship Tycoon Albert Moore (Moore-McCormack) agreed to deliver the trucks if Brazil could promise "no waiting" at its snafued docks (TIME, April 7). President Dutra gave his word. Last week's delivery was the payoff.

The Brazilian Government is not going into the trucking business. Once assembled in Ford and General Motors plants at Sao Paulo (at the rate of 160 a day), the trucks will be sold at ceiling prices to any ready buyer.

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