Brazil Attracts Obama's Attention

Obama’s choice to visit Brazil during his first visit to South America came as little surprise. Brazil has a lot going for it these days. The country’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega said last week Brazil has surpassed Great Britain and France to become the world’s fifth largest economy after posting 7 percent economic growth in 2010—though growth is expected to slow this year as Brazil tries to avoid letting the economy overheat. The city of Rio de Janeiro is enjoying a construction boom in preparation for hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. And Brazilian politicians and policymakers are not sacrificing social equality for growth; between 2003 and 2009, poor Brazilians’ income grew seven times as much as that of rich Brazilians. 

Brazil’s neighbors recognize the country’s new position. The Brazilian military has played an important role in facilitating hostage transfers in Colombia. Whether by choice or by default, Brazil’s foreign policy establishment helped negotiate an end to the Honduran crisis, after ousted President Manuel Zelaya sought refuge for four months in his country’s Brazilian Embassy. President Sebastián Piñera of neighboring Chile recently told Spanish daily El País he recognized Brazil’s regional leadership role “as a fact.” 

Brazil has become not only a regional leader, but also an international one. Its economy is strong enough to have earned Brazil’s inclusion with Russia, India, and China as a BRIC economy. The group held its second summit in Brazil last year. A new BBC World Service survey of 27 countries found that the percentage of people who view Brazil’s role in the world as positive jumped to 40 to 49 percent since last year. The success of Brazil’s conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família—lauded in a recent opinion piece by Tina Rosenberg published by The New York Times—has led other countries in the region to adopt the model. “Several factors contribute to Brazil’s astounding feat,” Rosenberg writes, referring to the reduction of Brazil’s poverty rate from 22 percent to 7 percent from 2003 to 2009. “But a major part of Brazil’s achievement is due to a single social program that is now transforming how countries all over the world help their poor.”

Brazil launched into the realm of international politics over the summer when the Lula administration unexpectedly partnered with Turkey to broker a deal that would have allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, in a bid to avoid sanctions from the U.N. Security Council. The plan proved unsuccessful and Lula’s moment in the spotlight transitory—but the fact that the biggest tension experienced between Washington and Brasilia in recent years erupted not over international policy rather than a bilateral issue was symbolic of Brazil’s rise.

Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration seems to have paved the way for more harmonious U.S.-Brazilian relations, however. “I consider the relationship with the U.S. very important to Brazil,” Rousseff told The Washington Post in December. “I will try to forge closer ties to the U.S.” Shortly after Rousseff took office in January, she put a nearly completed deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault on hold, raising the possibility that U.S. producer Boeing might be back in the running for the multi-billion dollar deal. After confronting the United States over sanctions on Iran, Brazil voted last month in the U.N. Security Council to apply sanctions to Libya—including an arms embargo, an assets freeze and a travel ban—in response to Libyan head of state Moamar Gadaffi’s violent repression of protesters. 

The Obama administration has also shown signs that it is interested in allying more closely with Brazil. Obama plans to offer Brazil financing worth hundreds of millions annually, according to a report by Reuters based on anonymous sources in both governments. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the Obama administration would work with Brazil to pressure countries that keep their currencies undervalued, after a February visit to Brazil in which he met with Rousseff. Though Rousseff has criticized her country’s trade imbalance with the United States, Brazil’s industrialists point out that the $23.5 billion trade deficit with China for manufactured goods represents a more pressing problem. Enlisting Brazil’s assistance to oppose Chinese monetary policy may be one way that the Obama administration is rethinking the South American giant’s importance. As COA Vice President Eric Farnsworth writes in The Miami Herald, “Brazil’s dramatic rise is altering the foreign policy calculus.” 

Learn More:

• Read an AS/COA News Analysis about Obama's upcoming visit to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador from March 19 through 23.
• Watch the joint press conference between Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
• Read Eric Farnsworth’s opinion piece in The Miami Herald about Brazil’s meteoric rise and its implications for U.S. foreign policy.
• Read the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s explanation of its vote to sanction Libyan leader Moamar Gadaffi. 
• Read journalist Tina Rosenberg’s opinion piece in The New York Times arguing that the United States can learn from Brazil’s success reducing poverty. 
• BBC World Service poll saying that people see Brazil as having a positive influence
• Read the text of the U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning the government of Libya.