Dilma and the United States: a thin record so far

11/01/10
Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S. Policy

Brazil has a new president\: Dilma Rousseff of the ruling Workers’ Party won a resounding 55-to-44-percent victory in Sunday’s second-round vote. She will take office – succeeding her close ally, popular two-term president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva – on January 1. She is the first woman ever to serve as president of Brazil.

Rousseff’s victory is unlikely to change the trajectory of Brazil’s cordial but distant relations with the United States. The President-Elect has offered little reason to doubt that she will continue her predecessor’s arms-length posture.

While Lula engaged in a friendly dialogue with Washington, his government had sharp disagreements with the Bush and Obama administrations about trade, Iran’s nuclear program, climate change and the 2009 coup in Honduras. During Lula’s tenure, as Brazil saw its economic and political influence increase worldwide, the country charted an ever more independent foreign policy course. It prioritized relations with neighbors in Latin America and the “global south,” while at times ignoring or defying the United States.

In her youth, Dilma joined the underground resistance against – and was jailed and tortured by – a military dictatorship that enjoyed the Nixon administration’s support. Though she has since grown more moderate politically, the U.S. role in supporting Brazil’s authoritarian past darkens many PT members’ attitude toward Washington, and Dilma may be no exception.

Reading the record offers few clues about Dilma and the United States, however. Her campaign website includes a “platform” page listing several issues, in which foreign policy does not even appear. When her campaign did issue declarations about foreign policy, though, it made clear that the United States was not at its core.

We maintained [in the last government] our traditional ties, with all their historical baggage. At the same time, we broadened the range of our relations. We strengthened our links with Latin America, Africa, the Arab countries, with China and India. … [O]ur foreign policy – universal and multilateral – favors the formation of a multipolar world. We endorse a closer South-South, though this does not mean a departure from the United States, the European Union or Japan.

During a 2009 visit to the United States Dilma, then Lula’s chief of staff, chaired the “Fourth Meeting of the Brazil-U.S. Forum of business leaders,” where she evidenced a strongly pro-free-trade position, emphasizing the need to “fight protectionism” in the bilateral relationship. Beyond that, though, our examination of Dilma’s record offers very few clues about her plans, if any, for U.S.-Brazil relations.

The record does, however, highlight a revealing rhetorical theme. On at least a few occasions during the campaign, the President-Elect used the United States as an example to illustrate something negative.

  • On October 18, calling for the need to lift poor Brazilians out of poverty in order for the country to be considered “developed,” Dilma said, “We don’t want to be the United States of South America, in which part of the black population is in jail, and the poor whites live in trailers.”

  • Speaking at a Jewish center in São Paulo on September 13, “Dilma explained that she shared the Lula government’s opinion, which defends peace negotiations instead of isolation. For the candidate, the method applied by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that the best strategy is not war, but the building of a path to peace.”

  • In an October 11 debate against opponent Jose Serra: “My generation remembers well the Vietnam War. There was a total underestimation of the Vietnamese capacity to resist the world’s greatest power, the United States. Serra has the habit of underestimating people, he believes he’s superior to everyone else.”

This certainly doesn’t indicate an antipathy that could damage U.S.-Brazil relations. Dilma Rousseff is a pragmatic politician who, like her predecessor, will seek good relations with the United States whenever she views it as in Brazil’s interest to do so. But her occasional remarks indicate that Dilma may not feel deep personal affection for Brazil’s big northern neighbor.