Today we had a Brazilian foreign relations professor speak about Brazil’s ideology on the international stage. It was stated that Brazil has three main principles which guide its position on foreign policy issues: universalism, autonomy, and the Brazilian version of manifest destiny. Universalism is the concept that Brazil will try to maintain friendly relations with all countries regardless of government type or physical location. Autonomy is the idea that Brazil wants freedom and flexibility in politics. This includes not forming agreements that may jeopardize or restrict future opportunities. Finally, the Brazilian version of manifest destiny represents the idea that Brazil is meant to occupy a special place in the international stage.
After getting a quick lesson on the Brazilian perspective on foreign relations, the professor stated that despite all of Brazil’s current economic success, the only way for Brazil to continue to grow is to give up some of its autonomy. She stated that due to globalization Brazil must begin to participate in different treaties and agreements to maintain its reliability and improve its international image. For example, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons became effective in 1970. Brazil only signed the treaty in 1998, when Brazilian credibility came into question. Although Brazil did give up some of its autonomy by signing the treaty, it gained credibility in the international stage. Brazil also maintains its autonomy by protecting domestic companies from foreign competition. Rohter (2012) gives several examples of Brazilian companies that are under government protection including Embrapa (an agricultural research company) and Petrobras (a petroleum company). From the visit to the American Chamber of Commerce, we learned that the Brazilian government requires Petrobras to control 30% of all new petroleum ventures in Brazil. These protectionist actions demonstrate high Brazilian nationalistic pride in wanting to achieve economic success with their own local companies. This protective nationalistic behavior may have stemmed from Brazil’s colonial history in which its resources were highly exploited by European countries. Therefore, I have a huge amount of respect for the Brazilian government for achieving economic success by their own means and with their local companies.
Brazil’s universalism is something that was discussed during the pre-trip lessons and was also described in Rohter’s book. In the chapter “Industrial Giant, Agricultural Superpower”, Rohter describes Brazil’s trade patterns which are divided as close as “possible into quarters, with Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia having equal shares.” Brazil’s goal to keep friendly relations with all countries allowed it to create friendly trading relationships with a variety of countries from different continents. This allows Brazil to maintain relative flexibility and prevents Brazil from relying on a particular country for trade. Because of their trading success, Brazil was not particularly affected by the 2008 Recession, which shows that their universalism ideology has its benefits despite the additional diplomatic effort required to maintain all those relationships.
Toward the end of the lecture, we got a brief overview of Brazil’s relationships with the United States and Latin America. It was said that Brazil has often had a strained relationship with other Latin American countries due to the fact that Brazil is the largest and most economically successful country out of all Latin American countries. Latin American countries have the perception that Brazil is trying to impose their leadership on other Latin American countries. There are often conflicts within the Mercosul (Mercado Comum do Sul) economic agreement between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay due to the balance of economic power tilted towards Brazil.
Brazil’s relationship with the United States seems to be friendly on the surface. However there are often events which make the relationship strained. For example, it was stated that the United States was the only country which opposed Brazil becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The professor also compared Brazil’s influence style to the United States’ influence style on the international stage. It was said that Brazil uses more “soft powers” which include persuasive and diplomatic skills. The United States not only uses “soft powers” but also has military force to back up their diplomatic talks.
Overall, the Brazilian foreign policy requires Brazil to balance between protecting its domestic companies while pleasing and maintaining positive relationships between other foreign countries. I believe that Brazil will be able to continue improving and finally achieve the world superpower status if it continues to follow its current ideology. However, many will argue that Brazil has already achieved that status…
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Itamaraty (Brasilia) – Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations
Source: http://www.baixaki.com.br/usuarios/imagens/wpapers/364210-5135-1280.jpg
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