Gravity and turbulence: United States-Brazil relations under Obama and Lula.

• Author: Langevin, Mark S.

Editor's Note:

U.S.-Brazilian relations are the most complex they have been in recent memory. The Brazil-Turkey-Iran negotiations were just the most recent example of Brazil's and the United States' differences in perception yet the relationship between these two large countries should be able to transcend their differences.--Ed.

Gravity and Turbulence: United States-Brazil Relations under Obama and Lula

Gravity has always kept the United States and Brazil within close orbit, but the recent turbulence in their bilateral relations is cause for concern and an important challenge for their respective governments. Most scholars of U.S.-Brazil relations were surprised at the intensive presidential diplomacy carried out by former U.S. President George W. Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Today, more than a few are increasingly critical of the bilateral relationship under President Barack Obama's administration. (1) The bilateral agenda is ever more complex and both Presidents Obama and Lula are now accelerating efforts to deepen cooperation, but this hard work is too often frustrated, sidetracked, and even spoiled by a growing list of contentious issues. Although the sheer gravitational pull of people, trade, and investment draws these countries together, the breadth and complexity of the bilateral relationship now churns up greater turbulence than ever before.

The double edged issue area of trade has always propelled and perplexed U.S.-Brazil relations, but the failed negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA), the stalled Doha round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, and Brazil's successful prosecution of the U.S. marketing subsidies for domestic cotton producers at the WTO have all combined to challenge negotiators and policymakers from both governments while making the flight path to further economic integration all the more bumpy. Also, Presidents Obama and Lula plotted divergent responses to the Honduran coup that ousted former President Jose Zelaya on June 28, 2009. Late last year President Lula stood before the delegates to the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), known as the COP15, in Copenhagen with a disapproving gaze upon the U.S. delegation to voice his discontent with the developed world's responses to global warming and climate change. This year, both governments skirmished behind the dead and debris of Haiti's earthquake as Washington adopted a unilateral initiative to work directly with the fractured government of Portau-Prince and sidestep the Brazilian command of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). (2)

Clearly Washington and Brasilia can cooperate when they can avoid or steer clear of turbulence. Last year the Obama administration announced a military cooperation agreement with Colombia without consulting Brazil, setting off a firestorm of Brazilian and South American condemnation against the White House and Pentagon. Yet, just months later U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim inked the first bilateral military cooperation accord in decades. (3) The agreement is limited to facilitating greater exchanges between these nations' armed forces, but it does illustrate the political will and diplomatic capacity to cooperate where and when possible. In May of 2010 the U.S. and Brazil convened the "Call to Action" conference of the U.S-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality or JAPER, an ongoing effort to exchange experiences and best practices in an effort to end discrimination and racism. (4) Of course, these inspired efforts to consolidate greater cooperation are juxtaposed to the ongoing and potentially bitter discord over the Iranian nuclear challenge and the future of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. Members of the Obama administration have called into question President Lula's efforts to broker a resolution to the conflict fueled by Iran's nuclear program, verifying the greater than ever weight of this bilateral relationship and its potential for turbulent times ahead. Given the increasing geopolitical importance of the bilateral relationship, can the U.S. and Brazilian governments ride out such turbulence and jointly set course on expanding cooperation to confront such global issues as non-proliferation, global warming, terrorism, and trade; or will the new jumbo sized bilateral agenda fail to take off?

This article explores this question by offering an analysis of the underlying forces of gravity that keep these two nations within the same geopolitical orbit despite their different, and often divergent flight paths. The first section of this article describes and assesses several key structural linkages that bridge these two nations, including: immigration, remittances, trade, and foreign direct investment. This section reveals the increasing importance of the Brazilian immigrant community in the U.S. and the strategic, developmental nature of Brazil's industrial exports to U.S. markets. The second section surveys the current bilateral turbulence by examining the WTO cotton case and the Iranian nuclear challenge as representative issues that reflect the growing international importance of the U.S. and Brazil dyad and reveal the divergent policy frames that can incite bilateral commotion.

The Forces of Gravity

U.S.-Brazil relations feature a dense web of social and economic relationships that exact greater cooperation and partnership. Brazilian emigration to the U.S. has grown exponentially, increasing the social, organizational, and economic connections between the citizens of both countries, including remittances that Brazilian immigrants send to relatives back home. Trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows between the two countries have multiplied in ways that deepen commercial relations despite the high profile trade conflicts that plague the bilateral trading agenda. The movement of people, goods, services, and investments between the U.S. and Brazil is accelerating, too, without much fanfare or scholarly attention. (5) Moreover, these forces of gravity continue to amplify cross-national connections and consequently test U.S. and Brazilian governments in both bilateral and multilateral arenas across a host of issues.

People

Possibly the most important, but least examined structural factor shaping contemporary U.S.-Brazil relations is the recent boom in Brazilian emigration to the U.S. Few scholars of U.S.-Brazil relations note the disproportionate numbers of Brazilian immigrants residing in the U.S. Almeida and Barbosa (2006) make little mention of Brazilian emigration to the U.S. and its impact upon bilateral relations. (6) Hirst (2005) notes that Brazilians residing abroad and in the U.S. have created a new diplomatic issue for the Brazilian government and have become a major duty for the nine (9) Brazilian consulates located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. (7) Yet, Hirst downplays the importance of Brazilian emigration by reporting that "Compared to other Latin communities in the United States, the Brazilian group does not hold a strong sense of community and its members usually perceive their presence in the United States as temporary ... Brazilians form an isolated group within the immense population of immigrants in the United States. Their social networking is based on family reunification processes and/or new links, especially by intermarriage, with U.S. citizens (2005:60)."

Hirst is correct to conclude...