The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

J U N E 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 27 F OCUS ON L AT IN A MER ICA B RAZIL AND THE U.S.: R EMAKING A R ELATIONSHIP razil’s outsized global aspira- tions and diplomatic heft were on full view in Tehran back in May 2010. Brazilian President Lula da Silva and his Turkish counterpart had triumphantly announced they had persuaded Iran to move uranium enrichment activities overseas — an objective the U.S. had earlier pursued in vain. Washington, however, did not applaud. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton angrily condemned Brazil, denouncing Lula’s negotiating success as irresponsible meddling that threatened a fragile international consen- sus to impose new sanctions on Tehran. U.S.-Brazilian re- lations were left badly bruised. When she took office on Jan. 1, 2011, Brazil’s first fe- male president, Dilma Rouseff (who, like her predecessor, is universally referred to in Brazil by her first name) was well aware that ties with the United States were deeply strained and needed close attention. In a Washington Post interview, she called for closer relations with the U.S. and criticized Brazil’s earlier opposition to the United Nations vote censuring Iran for human rights abuses. Her comments immediately raised expectations in Washington that the Rouseff presidency would produce a warmer bilateral relationship. What she and her advisers have said and done since then has kept those expectations high. And they were further boosted by President Barack Obama’s visit to Brazil in March. Although he also traveled to Chile and El Salvador, Brazil was Pres. Obama’s most important stop. He was en- thusiastically received by the Brazilian population, and suc- ceeded in initiating a productive dialogue with Dilma. No real progress, however, was made on the high-profile issues besetting U.S. Brazilian relations, such as Iran or nuclear proliferation, which did not even get much of an airing. The Brazilians were left disappointed, though not T HE CONFLICTS W ASHINGTON AND B RASILIA SOMETIMES EXPERIENCE ARE ONLY TO BE EXPECTED WHEN TWO POWERFUL COUNTRIES DEAL WITH ONE ANOTHER . B Y P ETER H AKIM B Peter Hakim served as president of the Inter-American Di- alogue (www.thedialogue.org), a W ashington-based think- tank on Western Hemisphere affairs, from 1993 to 2010, and is now its president emeritus and a senior fellow. Hakimwrites and speaks widely on hemispheric issues, and has testified more than a dozen times before Congress. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor and Financial Times , as well as newspapers and journals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and other Latin American nations. He serves as a board member of For- eign Affairs Latinoamerica and an editorial adviser to Americaeconomia magazine (www.americaeconomia.com).