Bolsonaro’s Subservience to Trump, 2019 and 2020: A Demanding Agenda and Limited Reciprocity

• Author: Laís Forti Thomaz,Tullo Vigevani
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X231152903
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X231152903

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 248, Vol. 50 No. 1, January 2023, 254–271

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X231152903

© 2023 Latin American Perspectives

254

Bolsonaro’s Subservience to Trump, 2019 and 2020

A Demanding Agenda and Limited Reciprocity

by

Laís Forti Thomaz and Tullo Vigevani

Translated by

Heather Hayes

In the relationship between Brazil and the United States during the Bolsonaro and Trump

administrations (2019 and 2020), Brazil advanced a demanding agenda that met with limited

reciprocity. John Kingdon’s concept of the policy window is useful for explaining that the two

presidents, having similar worldviews, saw the possibility of moving forward with this

agenda, but Brazil’s subservient position ended up compromising its bargaining position. In

the case of the commercial aspects of the Alcântara technological safeguards agreement,

Brazil’s unilateral concessions failed to generate concrete results before this window was

closed and even set the country on the path toward becoming an international pariah.

O governo brasileiro promoveu uma agenda ambiciosa que facilitou pouca reciproci-

dade na relação entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos durante os governos Bolsonaro e Trump

(2019 e 2020). O conceito de John Kingdon do policy window é útil para explicar o fato

que ambos os presidentes, além de partilhar visões semelhantes do mundo, viram a possi-

bilidade de avançarem esta agenda. Contudo, a posição submissa do Brasil acabou em

comprometer sua posição negocial. No caso dos aspectos comerciais do acordo das salva-

gardas tecnológicas da Alcântara, o Brasil deixou passar essa oportunidade porque as

concessões unilaterais do governo brasileiro falharam em produzir resultados concretos e,

ademais, colocou o país no caminho de se tornar um paria internacional.

Keywords: Brazil–United States relations, Bolsonaro, Trump, Decision making,

International negotiations

The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between Brazil and the

United States in the Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump administrations (2019 and

2020). The hypothesis to be examined is that Brazil advanced a demanding

agenda that met with limited reciprocity from its U.S. counterpart and failed to

produce results in terms of foreign policy objectives. The Bolsonaro administra-

tion’s demanding agenda was translated into the pursuit of agreements at any

price, aiming to consolidate domestic power in a context of subservience.

Laís Forti Thomaz is an assistant professor at the Universidade Federal de Goiás and a researcher

at the National Institute of Science and Technology for Studies on the United States. Tullo Vigevani

is a full professor of political science at the Universidade Estadual de São Paulo and a researcher

at the National Institute of Science and Technology for Studies on the United States. Thomaz

thanks the Distrito Federal Foundation (SEI-GDF No. 798/2019-FAPDF/SUCTI/COOTEC) for

financial support, and both authors thank Elisa Casc ão Ferreira for her contributions to this paper.

Heather Hayes is a translator living in Quito, Ecuador.

1152903LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X231152903Latin American PerspectivesThomaz and Vigevani/BOLSONARO’S SUBSERVIENCE TO TRUMP

research-article2023

Thomaz and Vigevani/BOLSONARO’S SUBSERVIENCE TO TRUMP 255

In his electoral campaign, Bolsonaro was seen as a sort of "Brazilian Trump,”

something that his supporters considered positive. His relationships, whether

personal or through intermediaries, with the U.S. president and with Steve

Bannon contributed to his legitimacy in the eyes of part of the U.S. right-wing

elite. He benefited from the anti-Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—

PT) campaign that was first set off in 2005 and gained strength over the course

of Operation Car Wash (P. Anderson, 2019; Hunter and Power, 2019; Singer,

2020). He openly favored bolstering the relationship with Trump’s United

States. According to Rodrigues (2019: 2), the "affinities between the two are not

limited to their ideas, their neo-nationalist tendencies, propensity for post-truth

politics (for example, denial of global warming and the military dictatorship in

Brazil), and zest for governing via Twitter"; Brazil could well be considered a

pivotal state for the far-right movement in Latin America. Shear and Haberman

(2019) stress that the White House had the idea that Trump and Bolsonaro

could work together to generate a closer connection in terms of trade and

regional matters, including the Venezuelan crisis. This pro–United States stance

triggered diplomatic incidents and attacks on China despite the fact that in the

first two decades of the twenty-first century China had taken on great impor-

tance not only in the Brazilian economy but as a world superpower. Bolsonaro

made four trips to the United States in his first two years in office—in March,

May, and September 2019 and March 2020.

Our analysis focuses on whether success was achieved from the Bolsonaro

administration’s point of view during the Trump years. The main questions

addressed are (1) Did the Bolsonaro administration generate an extreme change

in foreign policy during Trump’s term? (2) What gains were expected from this

change? (3) Were the Brazilian expectations and demands of 2019 and 2020 met

with reciprocity by the United States despite the asymmetry of power? We will

address two objects that stood out on the bilateral agenda, trade negotiations

and the Alcântara technological safeguards agreement, from the perspective of

the decision-making assumptions of international negotiations. Our paper is

divided into five parts, beginning with this introduction. The second section

addresses the concepts and strategies in setting the 2019–2020 agenda and bar-

gaining in international negotiations. The third reviews interpretations of the

changes in relations between Brazil and the United States and their structural

causes. The fourth provides two case studies, and the fifth provides an ana-

lytical assessment of the closure of the Bolsonaro-Trump policy window with

the election of Joe Biden.

APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS: AGENDA AND

BARGAINING POWER

Adapting Hudson’s (2005) approach, our paper takes as the explanandum

the relationship between Brazil and the United States in 2019 and 2020 and as

the explanans aspects of the decision-making process and the influence of the

actors involved. Of the degrees of change described by Hermann (1990)—(1)

adjustment changes, (2) program changes, (3) problem/goal changes, and (4)

international orientation—we highlight the last. Kingdon (1995) argues that