The Bilateral Brazil-US Relationship, a Triangular Game

President Dilma Rousseff’s visit to the United States is a good opportunity for some strategic scribbles. But first, a toast to the Brazilian president should be made with some cachaça, because this national beverage will now have facilitated access to the American market. This represents a victory for commercial interests in Brazil. Rousseff does not seem to be making public waves about this downgrade of the visit and not having been treated to a stately gala and dinner. The trip is about business, intended to deepen partnerships, and is about accepting that natural differences exist even between those who are considered natural allies. This represents a mature attitude for the pragmatic leader of an emerging nation, although there are not great expectations for this visit.

As a leader, President Barack Obama is negligent about Latin America, even more so than his predecessors, and he has not formulated the right chemical ingredients for a personal relationship with Rousseff, but the facts are apparent here. Brazil is the sixth world economy, a fourth holder of public American debt ($229 billion) and an important market for American businesses (and this president does not tire of emphasizing the need to make jobs in this electoral year). Furthermore, it is a democracy, in contrast to the super-emergent Chinese.

On the Brazilian side, there is old, rancid anti-Americanism and a Pavlovian sentiment in foreign policy, which results in annoying positions such as Rousseff conferring respect to the Cuban dictator, or the lack of firmness with the butcher regime in power in Syria, all in the name of the mantra of non-intervention. However, we no longer have the exhibitionism of the Lula era, which brought us into uncomfortable situations with the Brazilian mediation in the nuclear Iranian crises and the vote against sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council. Indeed, this leadership of Lula was one of the reasons for the American snub. Washington did not confer the status of a state visit to Rousseff’s trip, because residual irritation still exists from the diplomatic theatrics of the previous government.

But there is also incoherence in Obama’s position. OK, the super power gets irritated with the independent moves of emerging powers like Brazil, but there there seems to be more tolerance toward the behavior of an emerging nation such as India, who treads much more on American interests than Brazil, with its commercial protectionism and close relationship with Iran. Nevertheless, Obama gave the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the status of a state visit, when he appeared in Washington and formally endorsed India’s aspiration to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, something, up to now, which has been denied to Brazil.

In an extremely hot region of the world (where Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China are), Americans have, since the Bush era, been committed to cementing a strategic partnership with India, a country with a Pavlovian tradition of Anti-Americanism. The United States swallows unpleasantries, like the wrath which this relationship with India provokes in another complicated alliance, Pakistan, a nuclear ally. It does not hurt to remember, that, in spite of the new intimacy, India, as with the case of Brazil, aligns itself with the United States in less than 25 percent of United Nations votes. It is OK to recognize that in addition to its immense economic potential, the geopolitical importance of India is now impressive.

The essence of this reasoning is that, in due course, there still exists the potential for the strategic relationship between Brazil and the U.S. to be cemented. Obviously one should not treat this alliance as something that will occur automatically. The world is more multipolar and the emerging nations such as India and Brazil, though they are stable democracies (and corrupt), are not and never will be totally in tune with the American style of modernization, professing more enthusiasm for economic growth. Long live BNDES!* (Distracted readers, this last sentence was spoken with irony!)

But in these strategic scribblings, a point to emphasize is that both the U.S. and Brazil are increasingly aware of the complex bilateral relationships they both have with the emerging superpower of China. Soon the deepening of Brazil-Washington relations will be an obvious formulation, convenient for both parties. The United States needs a counterpoint to the Chinese advance and Brazil acts correctly with its policy of triangulation with Washington and Beijing. Brazil more and more fears becoming a slave to the exportation of commodities to China and the importation of China’s knickknacks. On the other side of the spectrum, in the middle of yet another wave of conversations about the decline of of the American Empire, the global machine still needs this “old locomotive” that always surprises with renewed energy.

The business is, therefore, still the same: bet on American capital in high technology, education (such as the program Scientists without Borders, which provides scholarships for Brazilian students to study in the U.S.), innovation and more commerce. It would be excellent, if there were a bilateral treaty of free-commerce (just a dream). What would also be marvelous would be a less anti-American Brazil and if, at the same time, the superpower were more aware of the importance of Brazil. The bilateral reality is far from being a disgrace, in spite of its disputes, but it is greatly lacking in mutual respect.

*Translator’s note: BNDES stands for O Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social, (The National Bank for Economic and Social Development), whose objective is to support ventures aimed at national development. It is known as The Brazilian Development Bank. Since its founding in 1952 BNDES has played a fundamental role in stimulating the expansion of industry and infrastructure in the country.