With his trip to Washington in February 2023, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, set out to “kickstart a new era of relations” with the United States under President Joe Biden—voicing shared commitments to safeguarding democracy and addressing climate change. Yet six months later, U.S.-Brazil relations have deteriorated, with the two states at odds over the response to Russia’s war against Ukraine and relations with China.
As the United States seeks to broaden its coalition beyond traditional allies, what potential does the U.S.-Brazil relationship hold for U.S. foreign policy? And how might these geopolitical divergences affect the United States’ and Brazil’s ability to cooperate on key transnational challenges, like climate change?
Join the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program, Chris Chivvis, for a discussion with Margaret Myers, director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, and Matias Spektor, professor and associate dean at the Fundação Getulio Vargas’s School of International Relations, on Washington’s strategic alternatives in its relations with Brazil.
For past episodes from our series, click here.
Event Transcript
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Chris Chivvis:
Good morning from Washington D.C. I'm Chris Chivvis, the Director of the Carnegie Endowment program on American Statecraft, and this is Pivotal States, a series of discussions that examine America's strategic choices with major world powers. Today we're talking about Brazil, whose size, democratic traditions and importance to global climate change make it a pivotal state. This is the largest democracy in Latin America and one of the largest in the world. It's also Latin America's largest economy and home to large reserves of natural resources, many of which could become the target of competition between the United States and China.
Over half of the gigantic Amazon rainforest also lies in Brazil. The survival of this rainforest is vital to curbing global carbon emissions. Some observers think that the US-Brazil relationship has been underdeveloped given Brazil's regional and growing global importance. But historically, Brazil has preferred a non-aligned foreign policy and embrace the idea that world politics is increasingly multipolar.
It's a founding member of the BRICS Group, along with India, Russia, China, and South Africa. It's not surprising then that the last few years have seen a number of twists and turns in US-Brazil relations. President Jair Bolsonaro closely aligned Brazil with the Trump administration, so closely that it earned him the sober kit, Tropical Trump in some circles. But that closer alignment came along with real strains in Brazilian democracy. And when President Biden came to office here in the United States, he had little interest in pursuing the relationship with Bolsonaro. Only when Bolsonaro was defeated by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, usually called Lula, back in 2022, did a new opportunity for cooperation between the United States and Brazil emerge.
Lula visited Washington in February of this year, and our two presidents promised to work together on strengthening democracy, on human rights and on the environment. It seemed like a positive step in the relationship but Lula's decision to then visit China where he got a warm embrace from President Xi, along with his advocacy for a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, irritated the White House and made some critics here in Washington question how much space there really, really was for deepening bilateral relations.
Well, we're here on Pivotal States to talk about all this today. How will this key bilateral relationship play out? What are the strategic stakes for the United States? How should Washington best address President Lula's approach to foreign policy? Is there an opportunity to build a mutually beneficial relationship even as Brazil maintains its traditional foreign policy independence?
Now with me here this morning to talk about this are two top minds on Brazil-US relations. Margaret Myers is the Director of the Asia and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue on the faculty of Georgetown University and a former Pentagon Official. Matias Spektor is Professor of International Relations at FGV in Sao Paulo, and also a non-resident scholar with me here at the Carnegie Endowment. Thank you both for being here.
Margaret Myers:
Thank you.
Matias Spektor:
Thank you.
Chris Chivvis:
Margaret, let me start with you. How should we be thinking about America's interests in Brazil in the broadest sense? Why does Brazil matter to the United States?
Margaret Myers:
Well, thanks, Chris, first of all for the invitation, and it's a really important question. Brazil matters in general for a lot of reasons, many of which you just mentioned. Just at the most obvious level, it's the largest country in South America. It accounts for half the continent's population and territory. It represents about 40% of the GDP of all of Latin America, and additionally plays a very prominent role in the geopolitical realm as you've alluded to. It's been central and rethinking the current global order from within the UN certainly, but mostly through the BRICS configuration where it has pushed, alongside China mostly, for a much more prominent role for the global south.
The country also retains an expert foreign service and has led peacekeeping missions in the region and far beyond. And in fact, during the recent G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Lula, Brazil's President called much needed attention to the Haiti crisis, for example, which has not been highlighted enough, whether by the US or others. And under Lula, who envisions an even more prominent global role for Brazil, the country has also involved itself in, as we've mentioned, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, envisioning itself as a possible arbiter of peace, but while also making several highly controversial statements about the war, citing at times with Russia's position.
And then Chris, as you mentioned, Brazil is also home to most of the Amazon or the lungs of the world, so it's pivotal in fighting against climate change. And so with all of this in mind, Brazil is a country that inevitably has some impact on US global interests and domestic interests for that matter as a major economic partner for the US and a main source of Latin American students, workers in the US, among other really critical people-to-people ties which are longstanding.
For the Biden administration, Brazil is also a critical example of a functioning democracy in the region, even though it, like the US, has had some difficulties of late. And with this in mind, we've seen considerable US support for democratic institutions and outcomes in Brazil, electoral outcomes. So to answer your question, for officials in Washington, my sense is that Brazil is seen through multiple lenses, right? On the one hand as a critical actor and potential partner, especially in the fight against climate change and upholding democratic values, but then also as a potentially important obstacle, to US efforts to defend the international order, for example, especially as concerns Russia and Ukraine, but also more broadly as Brazil and other countries challenge US dominance, including that of the US dollar and we've heard a lot about that of late. Unfortunately, it's my sense that this ambivalence has had a cooling effect on US optimism about the current administration, which was high at the beginning of Lula's presidency, and also a possible cooling effect on US engagement with the country in recent months, although we have seen obviously some overtures.
Chris Chivvis:
That's great. To get us started, Matias, let me just pose the same basic question to you. Looking at it now, you're, you're in Sao Paulo, so you're giving us the Brazilian perspective, but you also have spent a lot of time here in the United States, including at Princeton and at Carnegie. How should the United States, in your view, be thinking about its interests with regard to Brazil? Why does Brazil matter to the United States given the many other priorities that the US has to address these days?
Matias Spektor:
Great, thanks Chris. And it's such a treat to be here and to share this with Margaret. I broadly agree with Margaret's answer. I will add a couple of things, especially from a world that one looks at from Sao Paulo. The main reason why Brazil matters for the United States and it has mattered historically, is the fact that Brazil is the largest country in the one region of the world where the United States is what experts call original hegemony. This is America's region, the Americas, and Brazil is the one country that is big enough and has resources enough to both cooperate with the United States, but also clash with the United States here and there.
Historically, Brazil has been very cooperative with the United States, and yet this is a relationship that never really took off, even when the two sides have a lot of interests in common and they share a similar view of what's going on. For example, now on the issue of Venezuela, for the first time in many years, the Biden administration and the Lula administration have a common read of what's happening in Venezuela, and yet even then they find it very hard to cooperate. So Brazil matters because when Brazil moves in the region, it afflicts America's interests in the one part of the world where the United States is unrivaled.
Now, as Margaret was pointing out, all the geopolitical changes are beginning to unsettle this, and in particular we are talking about the role of China and Chinese influence in the Americas. China has been investing big time in Latin America for 20 years, not the least because the United States invited China 20 years ago to invest big time in Latin America. And now for the first time in many, many years, the United States confronts a region in which there are things happening that didn't happen before. And within that context, Brazil matters. So that's the first one, the geopolitical box that Margaret was talking about.
There's another side to this, why Brazil matters moving forward, and these are two very important things that people in D.C. normally don't talk about. The first one is that in the next 20 years, Brazil is going to be a major, major player with the United States in providing food to the rest of the world, energy in the form of food supplies. And in the context of the geopolitical changes we are seeing, these will make Brazil matter all the more.
The second one is that Brazil is now becoming a big player in the oil field. Brazil was never a significant oil exporter, but it's becoming one. And although this was never the case before and therefore there's no track record of US-Brazil cooperation on the oil front, this is something that will impose itself in coming years.
Then there is the issue of climate change that you both referred to, and here what I would mention is this. The reason why Brazil matters so much is that Brazil is a major driver of deforestation, and this is not something Brazil can deal on its own, partly because it needs money. It doesn't have to compensate those losers if deforestation were to come to an end, but partly because there's so much political interest at the local level in Brazil for deforestation that Brazil will need international cooperation big time to turn the tide, right?
There's another element to this which is very important, and it's that deforestation in Brazil is linked to the global supply chain of cocaine and other drugs, is related to transnational crime. So the issue of climate change in Brazil intersects with transnational crime, which is of course one of the biggest items in America's relationship with Latin America.
And finally, Margaret was correctly pointing out that Brazil matters partly for procedural reasons because you need Brazil's cooperation if you want to get things done in the UN General Assembly or in the WTO, and that's the BRICS. But when we look at many other multilateral fora, Brazil matters for reasons that one doesn't normally realize. So for example, NATO operations in the South Atlantic, they require procedural cooperation with Brazil, not that Brazil is a veto player. Brazil is very, very weak internationally, but it can make things more difficult.
As with the BRICS, it can make things more difficult, or consider the International Atomic Agency for example. Brazil is one of the few countries that enriches uranium, mines uranium, is building a nuclear propelled submarine there, or consider the law of the sea. Brazil has historically been a major player there. So for procedural reasons, it's important for Washington to have channels of communication with Brasilia that are functional, let's say.
Chris Chivvis:
This is a really impressive and long list of items. If we're talking about Brazil's rising importance as a global player, its regional gravitational pull, its economic importance to the United States, its vital importance to climate change, plus all of the other issues that you just raised, the question is some of these, there are tensions between them, right? Because obviously, as we have all mentioned already, there has been some tension between Biden's attempt to relaunch the relationship on the grounds of democracy, human rights and the environment, and Lula's preference or continuation of a traditional Brazilian preference for viewing the world through the lens of multipolarity. So how should the United States prioritize? What should be first When US diplomats sit down with Brazilian officials, when the president sits down with Lula, what should be at the top of the list? Which of these should be emphasized first? Margaret, do you have thoughts on this? What would you put first?
Margaret Myers:
Yeah, this is a very difficult question to answer I think, and just as Matias has pointed out that this relationship for whatever reason, despite these converging interests, has never really taken off. The two aren't always tangoing, so to speak. And so I think the main challenge that the US faces at the moment, and you see that the administration grappling with this, is how to engage effectively with Brazil in ways that will ensure the greatest alignment on issues of interest to both countries, whether it's climate or it's democratic governance or it's issues further afield, and especially democratic governments. I think at a moment when next door in Argentina, Javier Milei, a radical right wing and climate-denying presidential candidate, has just very recently surged in popularity.
So I think the question is what mechanisms will make the most progress in achieving this alignment? And this is really the question facing the administration right now. The US-Brazil economic relationship is already strong, right? Brazil is already a top destination for the US private sector and increasingly so amid challenges in other parts of the region. So the economic relationship has its own momentum of sorts. Still, I think there's a sense that boosting economic ties in ways that address both country's interests is important to the relationship and will continue to ensure a degree of collaboration potentially on these various issues that Matias has mentioned and that you highlighted, Chris.
And certainly, there was a recent meeting between Biden and Lula in which they highlighted some possible cooperation on job creation. So there is I think this sense that this continued strengthening of the economic relationship will have benefits further afield, but in general, the economic ties have not, at least yet, insured and alignment on views on all issues, including many of great importance to both countries. And as we've noted, there are plenty of areas of discord in the relationship. So how and whether Brazil can be more firmly brought into the fold, especially on Ukraine and other issues of this sort? And I believe this is a critical question for the US and other partners at present.
So it's less a matter of what should be prioritized than what mechanisms should be used to achieve some degree of alignment and to ensure that the relationship really stays on track from a bilateral perspective?
Chris Chivvis:
Some critics here in Washington would argue, critics of Lula and his foreign policy would argue that there really is no trade space the relationship that Biden seemed to want to build because Lula is willing to pursue at least some relationship with Vladimir Putin and pursue a much warmer relationship with President Xi. Matias, is that correct? Does Lula's embrace of a multipolar foreign policy basically mean that this relationship as you put it, which has never taken off, will never take off? Or is there another approach that the US could take?
Matias Spektor:
That's great. So I think it won't take off precisely for the reasons that you lay out, but not taking off doesn't mean this is going to be a disaster, and it doesn't mean the United States should ignore Brazil. So the way I see it, the administration has three choices basically. It can ignore Brazil. It's happened in the past. The United States can afford to ignore Brazil and deal with the problems when they arise, as they arise. The bulk of the last 30 years, it's a story of the United States not caring much.
The second option is to try and engage Brazil, which is precisely what this administration tried to do when Lula took office. It's what the Obama administration tried to do when it took office, and it's what the Trump administration tried to do when it took office and it never really worked. The problem with engagement not working is of course that then in the United States people reversed back to ignoring Brazil.
My take is very similar to Margaret and it's to manage the relationship in full knowledge that there will not be alignment. And the reason that there won't be alignment is that if you are a relatively big country in America's regional hegemony, at the same time the United States provides lots of public goods for you, it's also the main source of threat to you, not military threat. The United States has an equal ability to impose costs on Brazil. So it's only natural that Brazil will want to diversify its relationships. It's only natural that Brazil will say, ""We will not alienate Russia or China because a unipolar system is not good."
Unipolarity since the 90s, between the 90s and the mid-2000s was not a good deal for Brazil, nor was bipolarity during the Cold War, mind you. So in the heads of Brazilian, not just diplomats, at least across the board and even the people, the best distribution of Paris, one that is multipolar because it allows a country like Brazil to try and counterbalance America's enormous influence in Brazil and in its near abroad, let's say.
So my suggestion to the administration would be to say, acknowledging that this is a reality and that Brazil will never join the United States and align with the United States, and that Brazil will always play BRICS or whatever form of multipolarity there is at the time, what can we actually do together that is step-by-step, it's piecemeal? This is not going to take off, it's not going to be an India type of story, counterbalancing China. You'll have to manage this relationship gently, softly, probably through back channels. The institutional channels are not there. The minute you bring this to the official institutions, it collapses and it's focusing on a few things that matter.
The ones I think, and I think Margaret agrees is energy, food, climate change, practical things where you can get purchase from domestic constituencies that will be invested in having a productive bilateral relationship, if not anything that's smacks of alliance, alignment, or in the view of Brazilians, subservience to the United States.
Chris Chivvis:
That's really interesting. Margaret, please?
Margaret Myers:
Can I add, I couldn't agree more with Matias. And just to add on China or on some of these issues where it is a bit of a no-go, right? Where there's not a lot of room to maneuver, where we don't see a lot of progress being made, it's still worthwhile to consider some of the nuance in for example, the Brazil-China relationship, right? This isn't a full on perfect ideal dynamic that even though there is a considerable commitment on both sides to engaging more extensively and strengthening that bilateral relationship, there's very imbalanced trade. There will probably be some disagreement on who to include in an expanded BRICS configuration or not, as we will see in the BRICS summit coming up.
And then beyond that, we've seen actually some US and Brazil cooperation in the area of nuclear technology, albeit very limited and also in space policy. So there are things that can be done. So it's understanding what is possible within the realm of reality. And the realm of reality is very much as Matias described it, there are low hanging fruits and then there are not. But even within those other high hanging fruits, I guess we want to call them that, there are ways to think about some of the nuance there and where opportunities may lie.
Chris Chivvis:
So Margaret, you're a leading expert on the role of China in Latin America as a whole. So is what you're saying that the United States should be cognizant of Brazil's deepening relationship with China, but not make too much of it?
Margaret Myers:
Basically, yes. We've seen attempts by two administrations now, especially under the Trump administration, to try to dissuade Brazil from engaging with China in various areas, but especially those of security concern to the US and tech especially, with a lot of talk about 5G and Huawei and the potential challenges and security threats posed by those technologies and Huawei equipment. It resonated to a degree with the Bolsonaro administration and there were some efforts to perhaps consider purchasing other equipment for use, at least by the government or by certain parts of the Brazilian militaries, and Matias would know more about the specifics of that, but Lula made it loud and very clear during his visit to China, that collaboration not just with China but with Huawei and other tech giants was very much on the table and would be moving ahead with visits to Huawei factories, to Huawei showcase facilities.
And so yeah, it just hasn't made a dent and it's not just in Brazil, it's across the entire region. So it's a matter not of trying to dissuade these countries from engaging with China, which happens to be a top trade partner and a major investor, including in sectors where the US isn't touching at all and nor our other partner nations. So it's a no-go. That said, there are areas where Brazil and the US can cooperate in policy setting, agenda setting, and for example, as I mentioned, nuclear policy, space policy, other areas of interest to Brazil from an economic and strategic and political perspective where they or may not align with China. And so it's a matter of thinking about this a little bit more strategically and understanding really what would appeal to Brazil and what is in Brazil's best interest as we approach Brazil for cooperation on these issues.
Chris Chivvis:
Great. Very interesting. This is Pivotal States. I'm Chris Chivvis, the Director of the Carnegie Endowments program on American Statecraft. We're here talking about Brazil today, and we're going to turn to the audience for questions in a few minutes. But before we do that, Matias, let me ask you to come in on what Margaret was just talking about. How should the United States policymakers understand this apparently open-ended relationship between Brazil and China? Is it really open-ended or are there natural limits as Margaret was just suggesting?
Matias Spektor:
I think Margaret is spot on. Let me speak to the limitations, to the constraints that Brazilians, irrespective whether they're Bolsonaro or Lula, or any other Brazilian leader, confront in dealing with China. There are two things here. First of all, although Brazil is increasingly dependent on China, and China is increasingly dependent on commodities coming from Brazil and China is very exposed to Brazil, for example, a third of energy distribution is now owned by Chinese capitals in Brazil, the relationship is not an easy one.
China treats Brazil in a manner that is very top-down. Meetings at the BRICS are very scripted. Brazil finds itself having very little room of maneuver with China. Brazil can have a far more flexible set of conversations with the United States than it can with Beijing. Beijing has a very set view of where Brazil fits in the global pecking order, and it's not at the top of that pecking order, and it's not at the top of Beijing's regional pecking order in Latin America. Beijing has far closer ties with other countries in the region. Even if Brazil is the biggest one.
So that's one of the constraints, but there's another set of constraints, and I think it's very important for US policymakers to understand this because this shapes the way any Brazilian leader is bound to deal with China. And this is the fact that in the last 20 years there's been the birth of pro-China constituency groups at home. So even when you have a president like Bolsonaro who promised to move Brazil away from China to align with the Trump administration, Bolsonaro took out time from his campaign trail to fly to Taiwan to campaign in Taiwan, trying to poke the Chinese in the eyes and promise to sever ties with China. He couldn't do it because his own domestic political basing Congress would prevent him from doing that.
Chris Chivvis:
Interesting.
Matias Spektor:
Brazilian leaders increasingly have their hands tied simply because China is such an important economic magnet and breaking that is going to be really tricky. Now, if you think the future of US-China relations is relatively peaceful, these needn't be a problem. Brazil will become more enmeshed, more interdependent with China. Lots of Brazilian interest groups will derive their bread and butter from trade with China and Chinese finance, and we won't see a problem.
In fact, this is exactly what the Clinton administration had in mind. And then subsequent administrations, when they encourage China to come to Latin America to join the inter-American Development Bank for example, because it was a useful way to have excess capital coming from China fill a void that the United States was not willing or not able to fill itself.
The problem is, Chris, if we think that the future of US-China relations is going to be more conflictual, then we're in deep trouble because then the United States will have a big incentive to try and push and shove countries in Latin America and Brazil in particular to sever ties with China, and they won't be able to do it because domestically this will be politically impossible, and then the United States will have very little choice but to play regional hegemony and lay down the law.
We saw something like this happen in the past. In the 1930s, the extra regional power that had extensive economic ties with Latin America was Germany, and it took an awful lot of time for the United States to be able to force or nudge and cajole countries from Latin America to ties with the Reich, not the least Brazil. So it really depends on what the future holds. My basic point is there's no reason why the United States should go around now rhetorically pushing these countries to sever ties with China without offering anything in return, which is the situation we are in now.
The successive Secretaries of Defense come to Brazil to chide the Brazilians, have them not do deals with Huawei, for example, but what's on offer? And simply, there's nothing there. So the status quo is okay if the future of US-China relations is okay, but it's not okay if we assume that in the future the US and China are going to be in a more contentious, difficult conflictual relationship.
Chris Chivvis:
I think it's fascinating what you say because obviously that applies not just to Brazil but also to other countries in Latin America and around the world. Things are going to get much more difficult for the United States in its relationship with many of these pivotal states if the relationship with China overall becomes sharper and sharper.
I wonder if we can spend a minute talking about the environment because it's such a key part of the US-Brazil relationship. One of the questions that I've had when I've looked at this is how much can the United States actually do to try to improve the situation in Brazil? It's obviously a very complicated domestic political economic problem for Brazil, and what are the things that the United States could really do in order to help to reduce or even halt deforestation of the Rainforest? Margaret, do you have thoughts on that?
Margaret Myers:
Yeah, I think Matias would have a better sense of the levers that can be pulled within Brazil to promote some degree of positive change. But what I can say is that I think there is a sense within the US right now that more does in fact need to be done, and a realization that the $500 million commitment to the Amazon Fund really did fall short of what Brazil would've hoped for. Especially when you look at the numbers that China tends to throw around, which are quite large, they don't always come to pass, but $500 million doesn't sound like a lot, even though it's a contribution to a fund that is multilateral in nature.
But it seems understanding this, that the Biden administration is looking to increase this amount now by mobilizing something in the neighborhood of $1 billion to support land restoration with some of that coming from the DFC. So if that materializes, it will hopefully make more of a difference for the Amazon and for the bilateral relationship. But I'd say that, the tools that the US has at its disposal right now are limited and they're not quick, and this is something that applies to the whole of Latin America as countries look for assistance from the US, as the countries look to engage with the US. Just as Matias said, there is interest in diversifying partnerships.
It makes good sense to do so away from China, including in the infrastructure sector, to have wide-ranging partners working in wide-ranging industries. But if the finance isn't there, if it isn't there in the right amount, or if the DFC can't lend to a certain country because it's an SOE that might be running the project, or if it happens to be a middle income country or a country with which the US has not so strong relations, then that ends up being problematic. So I would say that there are some restrictions on our toolkit that will make more engagement, including in the climate space a little bit difficult.
Chris Chivvis:
Sure. Matias, do you agree with that? How does it look from a domestic political economy perspective there in Sao Paulo?
Matias Spektor:
Great. So Brazil's deforestation problem and climate problem in general is gargantuan, right? Partly because so many millions of people depend on carbon emissions for their living. Land use is the major driver of carbon emissions in Brazil and Brazil lives off land use. So transitioning to anything different is going to cost tens of billions of dollars. And within that, there's very little the United States can do. It's great, provide some support to the Amazon fund, but no amount of money will be sufficient compared to what Brazil needs. So I would bet that the future of the US-Brazil relationship should center around that, but there's an opportunity now.
Brazil is about to unveil its own IRA. So the Ministry of Finance and Brazil's National Development Bank are about to announce a series of measures. It's basically subsidies, it's basically industrial policy, like the Biden administration, to facilitate a transition to a lower carbon economy. The task to get that to work without major corruption scandals, without major inefficiencies is going to be enormous, and there is a real opportunity there for collaboration between the two countries, in particular, the private sectors in the two countries.
The other area where there's a lot of room for collaboration, but a lot of danger is on the issue of climate related organized crime. One of the problems Brazil faces in the Amazon in particular is that organized crime is behind cattle laundering, illegal logging, illegal mining. For example, when the Lula administration took office, the Minister of the Environment found out that within the Amazon region, there are over 1,500 illegal airstrips. And the problem with illegal airstrips in a landmass that equals the size of Europe, the problem with the airstrips is that if you bomb them from the air with support from the federal police say, they get rebuilt within three or four days. Now, no talk of America cooperating militarily or even police cooperation in Brazil will fly.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Matias Spektor:
Because Brazilian elites are terrified of an American military presence in South America. The worst nightmare for Brazilians in the last 30 years in regional politics was Plan Colombia. When there was American military involvement in a neighboring country in a part of South America, that's very hard to control because it's so deeply forested. So none of that will fly, but what can fly is cooperation to help Brazil deal with the end of the illegal trade cycle, which is trade through the Atlantic going into Africa and then to Europe, where the consumer markets are for the drugs, for the illegal logging, for the illegal mining, so on and so forth.
So intelligence cooperation, military-to-military cooperation outside the Amazon, I think that would be an opportunity, but again, as Margaret said, America's ability to support Brazil in this is going to be limited.
Chris Chivvis:
That's interesting. That's interesting. Matias, I want to stay with you as we start to take some of the questions from our audience because we have one here that I know that you've spent some time thinking about. As everyone is aware, this is part of a broader series that we're doing on Pivotal States, and we have been focused on many states that are referred to as emerging powers or sometimes as the global south. We've had discussions about Turkey, about India, and now about Brazil.
And so we have an interesting question from one of our audience members here who is wondering how you see the similarities and differences between Brazilian strategic thinking and some of these other emerging powers in the BRICS, and also more broadly, how would you compare the way that Brazil sees the world to these other emerging powers?
Matias Spektor:
Okay, so let me take two, India and Indonesia. These are countries that are in many respects parallel to Brazil. Brazil has had increasingly positive and closer ties with these countries. These are countries that see themselves as countries coming from a post-colonial experience that are moving up the ranks in the world. So what can we say about the comparisons? This is really tricky. India is in an enviable position from Brazil's standpoint because India can trade support with the United States in ways that Brazil cannot. India matters geopolitically in the context of counterbalancing China. And India is making a buck out of this, mostly through military cooperation, military purchases, a phenomenal diaspora that is highly educated, that is well employed in the United States, and it's very numerous. Brazil doesn't have any of this, so we cannot really compare what's happening in the ties between Washington and New Delhi to Washington and Brasilia. Brazil is much weaker.
Then take Indonesia. Indonesia too is a country whose foreign policy resembles Brazil's a lot. When you listen to diplomats from Indonesia talk, it sounds like a Brazilian is talking. Joko Widodo, the President is the only man I believe in the last few months to have met the President of the United States, Russia and Ukraine. This is a man who sees himself as trying to hedge his bets and not take sides and benefit from the existing competition. But again, Indonesia is in a part of the world that China claims and is increasingly claiming as its own regional hegemony. So the differences are enormous.
Stewart Patrick from Carnegie has a piece out with foreign affairs a couple of days ago saying, "This is why we shouldn't really call the global south, the global south. It's so diverse a group. How much does the global south carry as water as an analytical concept?" My answer to that will be to say Stewart is right. This is a very diverse set of countries, but there is something that unites them. And what unites them is a common experience of being at the bottom end of a global hierarchy. These are countries that have an experience with colonialism, with economic injustice, with racial injustice, and these provide a common ground.
Does this mean they produce a common platform and they are united in multilateral fora? No. Part of the reason why the Doha round never flew is because Brazil and India ended up being divided among themselves, but there's something there. So the comparison between Brazil and other global south countries makes sense, and what unites them is this experience, and therefore they're united in the belief that unipolarity is not good for them. So defending the global liberal international order is not going to fly with them because they see advantage in having not only a strong China but also a strong Russia.
Chris Chivvis:
They have a common geopolitical outlook. Margaret, do you have thoughts on this?
Margaret Myers:
No, I agree entirely with Matias on all of these points. Yeah, I don't have much to add to that question.
Chris Chivvis:
One question is about Turkey. I don't know. We have a question here from someone about whether or not there are similarities between Brazil and Turkey Turkey obviously has a very unique geopolitical circumstance simply because of its proximity to Russia and to Ukraine, which puts it in a special place with regard to at least its role in the US-Russia and NATO-Russia relationship. Situation is a little bit different with regard to China.
Brazil seems a little bit more neutral, perhaps a little bit closer to China simply because of the economic realities that we have been discussing, but those economic realities go two ways, right? China's a major importer of Brazilian food, which would seem to me to give it perhaps not leverage, but at least some degree of significance in China's foreign policy thinking. I know you're not China foreign policy experts, but I put that out there as a thought. Does that strike you as roughly accurate, Matias, as we think through, or Margaret as we think through how Brazil compares to these other players in the global south?
Matias Spektor:
Sure. There's an interesting story of Erdogan and Lula. They both got elected at the same time and they were both hosted at the White House on the same day in the George W. Bush administration. And that day, December 2002, Condoleezza Rice came up with a framework and she said, "These are emerging nations that are bound to be more powerful and influential as time goes on." This is 20 years ago now, 21 years ago now. And since then, Turkey and Brazil have gone in very different directions, not the least because Turkey has become an autocracy and Brazil has not become an autocracy. And Bolsonaro, the threat to Brazilian democracy was defeated in the polls, in the electoral booth.
Now, the commonalities are there. Again, when you listen to diplomats from Turkey and Brazil talk a lot of parallels, a lot of parallels, but there are fundamental differences. One is a relationship with China, as you point out Chris, but the other one is that Turkey is dependent on Russia in ways that Brazil isn't. Brazil is very willing to throw its support for Putin within the BRICS, but Brazil voted against Russia in the United Nations. It will publicly critique the invasion of the Ukraine. And yet, when push comes to shove, as we have seen, Lula has made all these statements that sound really pro-Russian.
And if you ask Brazilian diplomats, they will tell you that one of the people they admire the most is Lavrov, of the Russian Foreign Minister. I think the same would happen in Turkey, but Turkey has a dependence on Russia that is much closer. Even if it's a member of NATO, it needs Russia to deal with problems in its own neighborhood, not only Syria, right? So again, there are common patterns, there's a common language, there's a common outlook on global order, but that doesn't mean that interests are aligned. Circumstances are very, very different. And all these countries, although they're much stronger than smaller countries in their own regions, all of them, they are relatively weak geopolitically still. India might be the outlier there as it is becoming very evidently ever more powerful.
Chris Chivvis:
Sure, sure. Margaret, please let me actually pose a question to you that's along these lines from one of our members of the audience, which I think encapsulates some of what we're trying to get at here. And this is, "How might the United States create a positive agenda towards Brazil or even the region more broadly, that's also aimed at countering Chinese influence in the region?" This is something that you think about. What are the keys to doing this in a way that is smart and sophisticated?
Margaret Myers:
Yeah, let me make just one note about one story about the uniqueness of the Brazil-China relationship and then I'll answer that right away.
Chris Chivvis:
Great.
Margaret Myers:
Obviously, we can make comparisons. I think everything that Matias said is absolutely spot on, but there is something really quite unique, certainly within the Latin American context, but even globally about China's view of and engagement with Brazil. And a lot of that is related to this very personal relationship that the leaders there have struck with Lula, in my view at least, and I wonder if you would agree Matias, but I remember being... Gosh, it must've been 2010, being in China and seeing on the front of papers, on newspapers, Lula hugging Hu Jintao at the time, these embraces, talk of brotherhood, just of a deep love for Lula and a respect for him as a leader.
And so it seemed to me a natural conclusion that Lula would again engage very extensively with China, while trying obviously to balance something of a relationship with the US, but this outreach would be really quite extensive. And indeed it was when you looked at the size of the delegation that went to China, all of the agreements that were signed, everything that was done in the fanfare that accompanied it. So it's unique.
And then obviously as you mentioned, Chris, this agricultural dynamic is fundamental and drives so much of it. And just as Matias mentioned, it's a codependence, which is really quite interesting. You don't see that in the rest of Latin America, at least not to the same degree. Really, China is heavily dependent on Brazil for exports of soy, not consumed directly by humans, but for animal feed. And especially so, given the US-China trade war and the effects on the exportation of soy from the US of late. So it's a really, really interesting and unique dynamic in its own right.
How do you engage Brazil in a positive way, while also countering or working to compete, I guess is the term we're using, de jure, to compete more effectively with China in the region? I think there are a few things that can be done. First of all, I'm a big proponent of greater economic engagement with the region generally, given longstanding feelings among regional leaders at the Latin American region has all been abandoned the US, and engagement especially on economic terms as the US looks to compete more effectively with China in this and other regions-
Chris Chivvis:
Do you mean free trade or what are you thinking about in particular?
Margaret Myers:
No, I mean trade, we're at a bit of an impasse with that, but certainly economic assistance in various forms and also investment, especially in the case of Brazil. And so as the US looks to reduce reliance on China and secure supply chains, which has been a big part of an effort to reduce reliance on China and to reorient production towards parts of the region, it's my view that Brazil can and should play a role in this process, especially in the production of higher value added products.
The US right now is a major contributor to value added production across the region. This is not something that we talk about enough and should engage with Brazil on these terms as it has for many, many decades, but also with much of the rest of the region. And to do so with this value added proposition very much front of mind. The problem is this idea of Friendshoring, right? Creating opportunities for countries with demonstrated commitment to US interests. And Brazil has a mixed record there, right? Friendshoring is necessarily exclusive just by nature. So maybe we ought to think about this as a making friendshoring or something of that nature. It strikes me that the administration would seem to be taking this to heart right now, at least to some degree having just talked about a jobs initiative with Brazil, which could be great depending on its scale.
I think also another thing that needs to be done, and I think this is being done to a certain degree, is bringing Brazil into the fold, right? As in this recent G7 meeting, acknowledging its prominence on the global stage and in global agenda setting. This is I think a critical component to maintaining fruitful bilateral ties and to ensuring at least some alignment on issues of global interest, even though obviously there is this profound commitment as Matias mentioned, to avoiding a particularly polarized or over-reliance on one single partner or on the US in general.
So for that matter is maintaining and strengthening and making more productive the many existing mechanisms for bilateral cooperation that already exist, and there are many of them, I don't need to list them all here, but the Critical Minerals Working Group, right? The US-Brazil Commercial Dialogue, there's the Defense Industry Dialogue. There are all sorts of different things happening at the moment. And in some of these, ideally there will be areas of convergence, if not in economic terms, if not competition directly within for example, the infrastructure realm, there may be a degree of policy coordination that can be achieved through these mechanisms, through these platforms that would be beneficial as the US looks to compete in broader terms with China, not just in Brazil but globally.
Matias Spektor:
Chris, could I just say a couple of things which I think are of interest? During the presidential campaign just now here in Brazil, Lula started using a language that really struck me and my colleagues as strange. He began to say, "We won't let China buy Brazil." So what's the story there? Because as Margaret pointed out, Lula has a long track record of very friendly relationships with China and the Chinese leadership.
So we ended up running this big survey to try and understand how Brazilians see foreign direct investment and in particular how they compare foreign direct investment coming from China to that coming from the United States, Europe and the rest of Latin America. And to our surprise, there is a lot of anti-China sentiment across Brazil, both left and right, but more pronounced on the right, and a fear that dependence on China is particularly dangerous.
Interestingly, none of what drives these effects is xenophobia against the Chinese. It's more a sense that increasing dependence on China puts Brazil in a very fragile position. And maybe this helps explain why even Lula needs to watch his words in a campaign context to counterbalance the very warm body language he has with China with something else on the other side.
And my second point is I think it's very relevant now because policymakers in D.C. are trying to make sense of how to deal with Brazil moving forward. And one of the arguments as Margaret said, and it's always been my own argument, is to say, well, if Brazil is demanding more recognition as an important player, just give it, give it to it and then see what you can get in return. The problem is, I think this argument no longer flies now.
After the Ukraine war, I think ties were very, very hurt. I think the sense in the White House is that the language Lula has used to lay part of the blame for the war on Zelenskyy and the language he has used to suggest that the United States is somehow one of the causes behind the war has made any notion, any argument that the United States should give Brazil more recognition as having a higher status, if you want, in the world is very hard to sell politically in Washington now.
That's why my sense is that moving forward, at least for the reminder of this administration, the best one can aspire to is to have a good back channel relationship that deals with the nitty-gritty of a few topics where interests are aligned. And even then, you will have to do a lot of political maneuvering to get the two sides to actually deliver cooperation.
Chris Chivvis:
So this is Pivotal States here. I've got Margaret Myers with me from Washington D.C, Matias Spektor in Sao Paulo. We're talking about Brazil and we're coming to the close of this session. But before we do that, I want to ask each of you, again, if you were to have a couple of minutes in the Oval Office, what's the main point that you would try to get across to President Biden in terms of what he needs to do with regard to the bilateral relationship between the United States and Brazil? Margaret, let me start with you. What's the main thing you would want him to come away with?
Margaret Myers:
I think three things that just as I mentioned, the economic relationship is on a bit of an auto drive, right? There's a lot of interest from both sides. This is longstanding, but there are ways to engage more extensively and potentially through these nearshoring mechanisms, policies, tools that are being put in place, implemented. And there are examples of this actually happening in certain industries. I think Brazil is very well positioned to be a player in this, to be a beneficiary of this to the extent potentially that some of the policies that Matias is recommending or was mentioning and that the US has put forth align especially, and that there may be some really tremendous areas of cooperation in the area of energy and also jobs creation related to those in other strategic sectors. That seems to me absolutely fundamental, a broadening of this notion of friendshoring to include other actors such as Brazil, which will be able to contribute to high value add production in the region and the securitization of supply chains.
Beyond that, I would just say that obviously I think this is understood now, but anti-China rhetoric is a no-go. Trying to recruit Brazil to become part of an anti-China coalition in the region.
Chris Chivvis:
Not going to work.
Margaret Myers:
Not going to work, right? And Brazil is not going to be interested in the clean technology and other arrangements that have been negotiated in places like Costa Rica of late, in collaboration with the EU for example. So it's a matter, just as Matias mentioned, of finding those niche areas where there is significant overlapping interest and pursuing those in whatever form possible.
Chris Chivvis:
That's great. Matias, what about you?
Matias Spektor:
I would tell President Biden three things. First of all, get your private sectors talking about a transition to a lower carbon economy and exploring how government in both countries can support that private sector cooperation across the board. And the second thing I would say is sit down and begin a conversation that's never had on how the two countries, as food suppliers and the two countries as major oil producers moving forward, can cooperate in a scenario in which geopolitically the words becomes bumpier in the future.
So you don't frame it as anti-China because that will not fly, as Margaret was explaining, but at least you create a framework in which productive cooperation can take place in two areas where both the United States and Brazil are going to stand out in the 21st century, irrespective of what happens with China.
Chris Chivvis:
That's great. This has been a fascinating discussion and I thank everyone who's been listening in. We've had a great audience and great questions. Margaret, Matias, thanks so much for joining us here on Pivotal States. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you as these things unfold over the course of the coming months and years. Have a great day.
Margaret Myers:
Thank you.
Matias Spektor:
You too. Thank you, Chris.
