Foreign policy at the crossroads
Within three months, if President Donald Trump fails to re-elect himself, the Brazilian government will have to reevaluate its foreign policy, which today is excessively tied to the guidelines and impulses emanating from Washington.
If Joseph Biden of the Democratic Party (who leads the polls for the time being) wins, President Bolsonaro’s alleged privileged family ties with members of Trump’s close circle will lose relevance – if they ever had any.
With Biden at the White House, Mr. Olavo de Carvalho’s influence would also have the same relevance in the shaping of Brazilian diplomatic priorities as the ones established by Professor Marco Aurélio Garcia – the guru for international affairs of Lula and Dilma administrations – that is, none!
The New York Times, in a recent article, said that the US ambassador to Brazil, Todd C. Chapman (who was a high level official at Embassy between 2011 and 2014, under Ambassadors Tom Shannon and Liliana Alvade, with whom , by the way, I had a good relationship) would be dealing with the Brazilian government to reduce import barriers to American ethanol, supposedly to favor Trump’s position with segments of his constituency in the state of Iowa.
Those who did not like this alleged news at all were members of the US House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel (Democrat, New York) sent a letter to Chapman asking for explanations on the matter.
But this is just a peripheral detail. Much more serious is the unconditional linking of our foreign policy to any other country, which goes against the tradition of Brazilian diplomacy, even during the military regime, particularly in the government of President Ernesto Geisel, of ‘responsible pragmatism’.
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