BRAZIL IS on the move. Its economic strength over the past decade
has provided the primary means for it to develop long-standing
ambitions for a larger global-leadership stake—a path that U.S. policy
makers have encouraged for many years, presuming that a stronger,
democratic Brazil more actively engaged globally would be a natural ally
for the United States. In so doing, however, it has pursued a foreign
policy independent of Washington, leading at times to misunderstandings
and dashed hopes. This was in evidence even before the revelations of
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 temporarily
froze bilateral relations. Over the past two years, growth has slowed in
Brazil and in other nations with which Brazil maintains significant
economic links, while the U.S. economy has been on a long march to
recovery. With the late 2014 reelection of President Dilma Rousseff on a
platform focused on addressing the unmet economic expectations of a
rising middle class, a framework now exists to improve relations between
the two countries when Rousseff travels to Washington at the end of
June. Still, getting relations back on track will require a more
realistic understanding of Brazil’s aspirations and worldview. The
United States must move beyond the vague notions of partnership and
romantic assumptions of shared interests that traditionally frame its
thinking.
Since it gained its independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil has
considered itself a natural claimant to at least a slice of global
leadership, along with other continent-sized nations and large
democracies. Brazilian leaders, particularly officials responsible for
foreign policy, have been greatly frustrated that, despite a
demonstrated willingness to be a responsible member of global-governance
institutions, Brazilian aspirations have neither been officially
recognized nor rewarded by those countries that established the existing
global political and economic framework. The nation actively fought
with the Allies in World War I, particularly in support of naval
operations; in World War II, it sent troops to Italy and also served as a
critical staging area for U.S. forces in North Africa and Europe. These
were politically difficult actions to take in both instances, given
significant domestic opposition and the lack of a direct threat to the
Brazilian homeland, and they contributed to a sense of frustration among
Brazilian elites when the nation was not rewarded with membership on
the permanent executive committees of either the League of Nations or
the United Nations.
Nonetheless, the realities of being a developing nation meant that
such ambitions would remain only aspirations until Brazilian political,
economic and military strength increased relative to those who had
established the postwar international system. For the remainder of the
twentieth century, a highly professional and effective diplomatic corps
promoted Brazil’s case for enhanced global leadership through the use of
soft power and moral suasion, always within the confines of the
existing global order.1 In the modern era, Brazil has worked effectively
for many years within international institutions such as the UN, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its successor the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and others. It has done so even without formal leadership roles by
positioning itself as a voice for developing nations and a counterpoint
to the agenda of the developed nations whenever the two were perceived
to conflict. This strategy has several benefits. It promotes Brazilian
interests without generally putting Brazil in direct opposition to those
managing the institutions of global governance; it establishes Brazil
as a leader among developing nations while providing enhanced political
and economic access for Brazil across the developing world; it builds
goodwill and support for Brazilian ambitions to join the UN Security
Council as a permanent member; and it allows Brazil to play an active,
informal role in global affairs and influence geopolitics and economics
without the need to bear the commensurate costs that global leadership
entails.
From a regional perspective, the traditional priority of Brazilian
strategists has been to build a sphere of influence, first within South
America and then more broadly. Key to this vision is maintenance of a
sound relationship with Argentina. This is Brazil’s primary strategic
touchstone, providing the rationale for creation of Mercosur (the Common
Market of the South) in 1991. Mercosur, in turn, has served as the main
vehicle for Brazilian aspirations to build out its self-identified
regional sphere of influence.2 Simultaneously, Brazil works within
regional groupings such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and
the Inter-American Development Bank when Brasília determines it to be
in its interests to do so.
The same is true in terms of bilateral relations with the United
States. Over the years Brazil has proven to be adept at working with
Washington whenever convenient, while keeping its overall strategic
vision of building global and regional influence firmly in mind. In
recent years, Brazil and the United States have collaborated to keep
peace on the border between Ecuador and Peru, and to implement UN
Security Council resolutions in Haiti. They have joined others in Middle
East peacekeeping operations, and they have enjoyed a strong bilateral
relationship on issues ranging from energy to agriculture to
environmental protection. The two nations are the most populous and most
influential democracies in the hemisphere, and democracy promotion
across the region is also presumed by Washington to be a core shared
value.
It is the anticipation of cooperative actions and assumed mutual
interest that has largely animated U.S. policy makers’ impressions of
Brazil over the years, and led them to build an expectation of Brazil as
a natural ally and partner in the promotion of a broader regional and
global agenda. But this benign vision fails to take account of Brazil’s
own aspirations to be a significant actor in its own right, rather than
following the outlines of a script written in Washington. At times this
misperception has led to an undercurrent of frustration and
condescension about dealing with Brasília. Increasingly, senior U.S.
leaders do acknowledge and even sympathize with the Brazilian worldview,
while also pointing out that the benefits of global leadership must be
paired with its burdens. The idea is that until Brazil shows a greater
willingness for burden sharing in support of the international (Western)
community, there need not be any particular urgency in ceding
additional space for Brazilian leadership in global governance.
BRAZIL NEVER accepted this calculus, however, and the first national victory of the Worker’s Party (the
Partido dos Trabalhadores,
or PT) in 2002 brought to power a more ideological administration less
patient with Washington and more willing to try an alternative approach
to foreign policy, working around rather than within existing regional
and global structures. This new approach was enabled by a growing
economy and spreading prosperity under the centrist economic management
of Rousseff’s predecessor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Under
Lula, Brazil’s economy boomed and millions of citizens were brought out
of poverty. Brazil struck oil off its coast and became a global energy
superpower. Its growing, investment-grade economy brought it into the
ranks of the world’s largest, while the global economic crisis in the
latter half of the last decade gave Brazil and other developing nations
bragging rights and undermined impressions in many emerging markets of
the natural superiority of the developed world’s economic model.
Economically, Brazil was on a roll, reaching high rates of growth and
never falling into recession, even in the depths of the 2008–2009
economic crisis.
At the same time, traditional foreign-policy rival Argentina faced
political and economic uncertainty and slipped further into Brazil’s
shadow, while the bombastic leadership of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez
afforded Brazil the opportunity to expand its own regional voice as a
“third way,” neither subject to perceived U.S. domination nor as radical
as Venezuela and its regional allies. When Brazil was chosen to host
the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Summer Olympics, it
was perceived as a global acknowledgement of the nation’s
long-anticipated and generally celebrated emergence onto the world
stage.
Meanwhile, great-power relations were also in flux. The United States
was preoccupied with Iraq, Afghanistan and its broader “war on terror,”
and gave low priority to issues on the hemispheric agenda. It devoted
only limited diplomatic resources to the region, and foreign assistance
was reduced year after year. China, in contrast, was just waking up to
the potential for regional engagement, primarily for purposes of its own
internal economic growth but also for reasons of global governance and
influence. China’s entrance into Latin America proved to be a game
changer for Brazil, as commodities upended traditional trade relations
and China became Brazil’s top trade partner. Brazil’s purposeful
outreach to China and China’s own interests laid the groundwork for
closer relations between Brasília and Beijing, allowing Brazil to
triangulate U.S. interests in the region with China. It also reduced
U.S. leverage in the region, given China’s willingness to finance
projects and engage with leaders heretofore acting outside the previous
hemispheric consensus. Talk of regional economic and political
“decoupling” from the United States became prevalent.
Ultimately, however, these broader currents only provided some very
tempting tools to use in the promotion of Brazilian interests, requiring
individuals to take the reins and act within this more accommodating
environment. The foreign-policy team brought to power by Lula’s election
saw the opportunity to marry Brazil’s newly robust economic weight with
changing global circumstances. Their worldview adopted the tenets of
regional solidarity against perceived North American imperialism,
affinity for the developing-world movement, and distrust of the existing
global economic system and its institutions of governance. In addition,
Lula needed to ensure the acquiescence of the PT base, many of whom
were agitating for a more populist and redistributive approach, to his
centrist economic agenda. This encouraged him to give freer rein to his
foreign-policy team as a means of occupying and rewarding the powerful
left wing of his political movement. He himself was a very successful
promoter and spokesman for these ideas and became somewhat of a global
celebrity as a result.
THE ASCENSION of the PT occurred as frustration continued to build
with the slow pace of change in the postwar political and economic
architecture. After all, with a growing economy surpassing even some G-7
members, a stable democracy, a continental presence, and a record of
working within the institutions of global governance and international
law dominated by countries which themselves were under immense economic
and political strain, Brazil’s inability to institutionalize its
ambitions for a more significant international voice became untenable.3
If institutions could not be reformed from within in a manner supporting
Brazilian ambitions and interests, Brasília under PT leadership was now
willing and able to consider collaboration with like-minded nations to
work around existing institutions or even, in some cases, to establish
new, parallel institutions, both regionally and globally.
Trade relations have been particularly amenable to a new approach.
For example, when Brasília determined in 2003 that WTO negotiators in
Mexico were on the verge of concluding a deal that was not in its
interests, its diplomats organized a group of twenty like-minded nations
that blocked agreement. Brazilian diplomacy successfully highlighted
developed-world agricultural policies, including import restrictions and
subsidies, which hit Brazil unfairly hard as a globally competitive
agriculture producer. Negotiations remain open to this day. Regional
trade diplomacy is similar. In 2005, Brazil’s active engagement with
other countries, including Argentina and Venezuela, scuttled
negotiations for a free-trade area spanning the Americas. Brasília
believed that the United States and its economic interests would
necessarily dominate a hemispheric trade zone, limiting Brazil’s own
ability to exercise its regional ambitions. Establishment of such a
trade area was the key agenda item—in addition to institutionalization
of democracy as a precursor for full participation in the hemispheric
system—stemming from the Summits of the Americas launched in Miami in
1994.
In the meantime, Brazil has actively worked to establish the building
blocks of a new inter-American system, with Mercosur as the economic
center. Originally including Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay in addition
to Brazil, Mercosur added Venezuela as a member in 2012 for both
political and commercial reasons, and other South American nations are
also affiliated. Additionally, Brazil has moved purposefully to
establish the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), which is
attempting to play an increasingly prominent political role, as well as
the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, consisting of
every Western Hemisphere nation except the United States and Canada. The
latter has conducted summit meetings with both China and the EU. A
nascent panregional military body has even been proposed in parallel
with the Inter-American Defense Board. Such institutions have become
viable because existing forums, such as the OAS and the Summit of the
Americas process, are ineffective and riven by political division. The
OAS has proven unable for years to address the most significant
challenges to democracy and security across the hemisphere, while the
Summit of the Americas is now a periodic meeting that, apart from the
April 2015 handshake in Panama between U.S. and Cuban leaders, has lost
purpose and ambition.
Until now, the concrete impact of most of the parallel regional
institutions has been minimal. This could change as the groupings mature
and leaders seek progress where they can in the absence of other
effective hemispheric institutions. The impression that is left is of a
region purposefully organizing itself apart from the United States and
Canada as hemispheric institutions that
do include North America become increasingly ineffective.
In addition to working with others to create a parallel architecture
for hemispheric governance, Brazil has actively resisted a number of
recent U.S. initiatives in the region. For example, in 2009, Brazil
strenuously objected to an agreement between the United States and
Colombia for the use of seven military bases in Colombia as springboards
for interdicting narcotics shipments from South America. Rather than
seeing this as an opportunity for enhanced counternarcotics cooperation
given Brazil’s own burgeoning drug demand, the Lula government chose to
interpret the agreement as a direct challenge to both the
contemporaneous emergence of UNASUR and the historic aspiration to
exclude the United States physically from South America. Brazil amped up
regional criticism of the deal, as did Venezuela’s Chávez, who
intentionally exaggerated and misconstrued U.S. intentions. Ultimately,
the agreement was voided. Brasília also complicated efforts to address
the 2009 political crisis in Honduras, offering asylum to deposed leader
Manuel Zelaya at its embassy in Tegucigalpa and taking a public
position against efforts to bring the crisis to a close through the
constitutionally mandated electoral process. Both of these efforts
wrong-footed the United States in the hemisphere shortly after Barack
Obama had taken office and had proposed a fresh start for hemispheric
relations during the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
Along with the regional effort to reintegrate Cuba into the OAS, which
the United States and Canada resisted at the time, these actions cut
short Obama’s honeymoon in the Americas, depriving a flummoxed United
States of initiative and broadening a leadership vacuum consistent with
Brazil’s own interests in assuming a more significant regional role.
But the ways in which Brazil and the United States have historically
exercised leadership are different. Brazil under the PT prefers a lower
profile on questions of regional democratic governance; its overriding
ideological concern is nonintervention (by the United States). Neither
has Brazil shown a desire to serve as an economic backstop or to take
responsibility for addressing regional financial challenges. The
gathering political and economic crisis in Venezuela and its client
states offers a compelling case: so far Brazil has resisted efforts to
reverse the downward spiral beyond supporting UNASUR as a vehicle for
mediation between the entrenched Chavista government and its
disenfranchised opposition. Brazil has also called for Caracas to set a
date for midterm elections by the end of this year. Economic interests
are also an important consideration for Brazilian foreign policy. In
this regard, trade relations are often seen “defensively” as a means to
protect the domestic market, even at the expense of Brazil’s neighbors.
Development aid is limited, and primarily promotes Brazilian products
and business interests.
BEYOND THE hemisphere, Brazil has been an aggressive promoter of the
BRICS (consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa),
infusing this analytical acronym with a political and economic
significance that was never intended when it was first identified in
2001. Brasília has used BRICS summits and related meetings strategically
to position itself as a leader of the emerging global community with a
direct call on a significantly greater share of global political and
economic governance. Initially more symbolism than substance, the BRICS
have taken steps recently to become operational. In July 2014, in
Fortaleza, Brazil, the leaders of the BRICS countries agreed to create a
New Development Bank, capitalized at $50 billion and set to launch in
2016. China will clearly be the dominant voice within the New
Development Bank, as it is among the BRICS generally. But this effort
has the potential over time to pressure existing institutions such as
the World Bank and the IMF to be more inclusive of Brazil and the
others, while also offering an intriguing possibility of developing into
a parallel institution that gives borrowers an alternative to the
Western-dominated institutions of the Bretton Woods system. Given such
strong economic links, it almost goes without saying that Brazil has had
little to say about China in terms of currency valuation, trade or
other complicated issues, even though the Brazilian private sector has
attempted to sensitize the government to the current unbalanced
bilateral trade relationship, and Rousseff has taken some limited steps
to address this. There seem to be no similar hesitations when it comes
to criticizing the United States; for example, over the
quantitative-easing policies of the Federal Reserve, Snowden’s spying
revelations, or U.S. trade policies deemed to be restrictive or unfair.
Brasília’s enthusiasm for the BRICS has sometimes taken the country
in further awkward directions. At the July 2014 summit, Brazil welcomed
Vladimir Putin without any public comment on Russia’s efforts to
destabilize Ukraine or Moscow’s support for the rebels who downed
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Brazil and its Mercosur partners separately
refused to condemn Russia’s takeover of Crimea. Rather than supporting
Western sanctions against Russia, Brazil has gained a windfall by
supplying Russia with embargoed agricultural products, thus undercutting
efforts to moderate Russia’s destabilizing and expansionist behavior.
Similarly, fellow BRICS member India was given a pass by Brazil in July
2014 when it refused to drop its objections to an important trade
agreement painstakingly negotiated, ironically, by the Brazilian head of
the WTO, and despite the fact that India had previously consented.
India’s about-face was a significant setback to the entire international
trading system.
Nonetheless, while the substance of Brazilian foreign policy has
remained consistent since 2002, led by an engaged and activist
professional and political corps, distinctions between Lula and Rousseff
should not be lost. Rousseff is a Lula disciple and clearly a product
of the PT, to be sure, but her style is more subdued and she has been
more focused on domestic affairs. Moreover, her final term has just
begun, so she no longer has to worry about reelection. Rousseff may now
be in a good position to reshape relations with the United States.
The timing of her coming visit to Washington is propitious. As
Brazil’s economy struggles, corruption scandals unspool and public
frustrations about unmet expectations proliferate, the primacy of
foreign policy is arguably slipping and the desire to rethink relations
with the United States may be increasing.4 The recovering U.S. economy
is a draw for Brazilian economic interests, and the political moment is
also more accommodating, given the recent steps that the Obama
administration has taken on Cuba consistent with Brazil’s expressed
desires. At the same time, Brazil’s top trade partner, China, has not
only seen its growth slow considerably, but is also prioritizing its
“One Belt, One Road” initiative, which focuses on Asia and directly
implicates fellow BRICS nations Russia and India. Over time, the BRICS
may prove to be a less durable organizing framework for international
relations, leaving Brazil the odd man out, even though Premier Li
Keqiang’s late May visit to Brazil and other South American nations
shows China’s continued interest in building ties to the region.
THESE TRENDS suggest that it may now be a fortuitous time for the
United States and Brazil to seek a newly expansive, mutually rewarding
path forward for a bilateral relationship that has essentially been
frozen in place since Rousseff cancelled her 2013 state visit. U.S.
officials must be clear-eyed about the opportunities and also the
realities. At this stage, it is apparent that Brazil is not the
strategic ally that a number of observers have suggested, but it is also
not a foe. Rather, it is akin to France, albeit without its own
force de frappe:
an important, self-aware nation with a proud history and large
ambitions, sharing the values and interests of a Western democracy but
strongly independent, willing and increasingly able to buck Washington
when its self-interest dictates.
Like most nations, Brazil has made its mistakes, and it has
overplayed its hand from time to time. Perhaps the best-known example
was its effort in 2010, along with Turkey, to facilitate a nuclear deal
with Iran. When Brazilian ambitions run up against core U.S. interests,
there should be no hesitation to assert them and to take appropriate
actions in response, as indeed the United States did in this instance.
Closer to home, recent examples of overreach include suspending Paraguay
from Mercosur in 2012 in order to pressure Asunción to acquiesce to
Venezuelan membership. Washington was not particularly affected or
concerned by this step, however, and responded accordingly.
But Washington should also be proactive in facilitating Brazil’s rise
along a path consistent with the U.S. vision for bilateral relations.
With such an approach, an agenda for action would emerge. On one hand,
the United States should work with Brazil as a partner and friend
wherever possible and whenever it is mutually beneficial. In Africa, for
example, Brazil is doing important development work that the United
States can support, and vice versa. Similarly, the United States and
Brazil share significant interests in agriculture, education, energy,
health care, peacekeeping operations, technology development, and global
climate change and environmental protection, among other issues. They
should work purposefully together in support of each of these agenda
items.
Brazil should also gain a greater say in existing institutions of
global governance—for example, the World Bank and the IMF—and could be
invited to join the G-7 now that Russian membership is suspended and the
size of Brazil’s economy exceeds others in the group. Permanent UN
Security Council membership—and the veto that goes with it—should
continue to await broader UN reform. Regionally, Brazil is entitled to
continue its efforts to organize hemispheric affairs through new and
different institutions, although it is disappointing that such efforts
exclude the United States and Canada.
At the same time, the United States must recognize that its own
influence in the Western Hemisphere has declined and take meaningful
steps to reverse this trend. Obama’s outreach to the Castro government
is clearly consistent with such a calculation.5 Additional moves should
be made, including investing significantly greater resources in regional
institutions like the OAS, while also committing sustained, senior
political-level attention to regional issues. It means nominating highly
qualified ambassadors and quickly confirming them, and fully staffing
embassies without the long vacancies that are regrettably becoming the
norm. It means moving forward with immigration reform and trade
expansion, while reducing domestic drug demand, the illegal export of
weapons and illicit cash flows. It means standing up against violations
of democracy and appropriately promoting the values of democratic
governance and human rights, taking the time and effort to make the case
for democracy rather than just looking for ways to punish those who
don’t practice it.
Finally, the United States must recognize that the moment in time has
passed when pursuit of a common regional agenda agreed upon by all
hemispheric nations is likely. As an ultimate goal, it remains an
important vision, as it has been since the days of Simón Bolívar, Thomas
Jefferson and numerous others. But for now, at least, pursuit of an
effective regional agenda requires that the United States identify
allies and friends who are willing to work in concert with it to promote
mutual interests broadly, not just sector-specific or narrow
self-interests.
In that regard, the creation of the Pacific Alliance in 2012 is a
development that the United States can fully embrace and support. The
four nations involved—Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile—are all
free-trade partners of the United States and generally see the world
through a similar lens. They have joined together in support of economic
integration and joint competitiveness, showing impatience with U.S.
reticence to engage more actively on the hemispheric trade agenda and
also wariness of economic and political integration initiatives led by
Brazil. The Pacific Alliance is an independent, organically organized
grouping that is likely to expand in the near term.
The United States should take concrete steps to develop an economic
cooperation and integration agenda with the Pacific Alliance,
incorporating NAFTA, CAFTA and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
negotiation partners together with other interested nations such as
Paraguay and Uruguay—whose own aspirations for political and economic
options beyond Brazil’s embrace must be recognized—to support U.S.
interests. This would not be targeted at Brazil or anyone else. Indeed,
the door must always remain open to the establishment of a strategic
economic relationship with Brazil, including a bilateral free-trade
agreement or a U.S. agreement with Mercosur, as unlikely as either may
be under current circumstances. Nonetheless, there is no compelling
reason why Washington should give Brasília or any other regional capital
a pocket veto over the pursuit of U.S. interests in the Western
Hemisphere. It is time to move smartly ahead, as Washington is doing in
the Pacific region with the TPP and in Europe with the Trans-Atlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership.
Brazil’s rise is significant and good, a long-standing desire
promoted by generations of policy makers in Washington. But it has also
altered the bilateral, regional and even global dynamic. The reelection
of Dilma Rousseff and her imminent visit to Washington present a
compelling opportunity for the United States to reevaluate and
strengthen its approach. The time has come to cast aside romanticism for
reality in order to pursue successfully a reinvigorated and healthy
relationship with Brazil.
Eric Farnsworth served as senior adviser to the White House
special envoy for the Americas during the Clinton administration and
began his career at the State Department and the Office of the United
States Trade Representative. Since 2003, he has headed the Washington
office of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. The views
expressed here are his own.
1 The primary exception to this approach was the effort to develop
nuclear weapons to counter the perceived strategic threat from Brazil’s
historical rival, Argentina, but this effort was abandoned after both
nations returned to democracy and forswore nuclear weapons.
2 The desire to organize the region under its own leadership is also
why Brazil reacted with uncharacteristic fury against the U.S. decision
in 1997 to name Argentina a “major non-NATO ally,” temporarily bringing
Argentina toward the U.S. orbit and contributing to Brasília’s sense
that a U.S.-led unipolar hemisphere would prove to be contrary to
Brazil’s own historic aspirations.
3 One exception is the G-20, in which Brazil is a charter member and
has a coequal role with other members. The group is accorded great
consideration by Brasília in the conduct of international financial
affairs; Lula used the forum to impressive effect in promoting Brazil’s
global position.
4 Brazil’s budget for its foreign ministry is today less than half of
what it was under Lula, constraining as a practical matter its ability
to engage internationally.
5 It will be important to watch whether and how significantly U.S.
steps toward normalization with Cuba change the political dynamic
between the United States and countries in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Image: Flickr/r loewenthal
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