Foreign Policy in Brazil: a sharp turn to the right

The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, opens the General Debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. New York, September 21, 2011. Image: Creative Commons. CC BY-SA 2.5

An ultra-right populist just won the
presidency of Latin America’s largest country. Jair Bolsonaro’s
promise to drastically ramp-up security, end corruption, and promote
traditional family values resonated with Brazilians fed-up with years of
government mismanagement, scandal, and spiraling crime.

The scale of
the former army captain’s victory caught most pollsters off-guard. He won 55
percent of the popular vote compared to just 45 percent registered by Fernando
Haddad, of the Workers’ Party. Bolsonaro’s little known Social Liberal Party,
PSL, ballooned to 52 members in
Congress while the Workers’ Party managed to hold on to 54
Congressional seats. The election transformed Brazil’s political landscape:
several of the traditional parties that have dominated successive governments
for the past three decades suffered catastrophic losses.

With that, Brazil is taking a hard turn to the right after
almost a decade and a half of leftist government. Not surprisingly, the focus
of the country’s most bitterly contested presidential campaign in history was
on domestic priorities. The Bolsonaro team’s scorched earth tactics made global
headlines.

He has said that his political foes should flee overseas or
go to jail, that Brazil’s landless workers movement were “terrorists,” and
that he would not respect an outcome were he not declared the
winner. Along the way, he was compared to US President Donald Trump,
President Rodrigo Duterte of
the Philippines, Hungarian president Viktor Orban,
and even Joseph Goebbels. While many commentators are
concerned that Bolsonaro constitutes an existential threat to democracy, others say the
risks are vastly exaggerated.

One thing is for certain: the torrent of
digitally enabled fake news,
in a country where the majority of the population claim their primary
source of information is Facebook and WhatsApp, polarized the country.

Although foreign policy issues were given short shrift during
the 2018 election, Bolsonaro intends to unleash the most dramatic
transformation in Brazil’s posture since the restoration of
democracy in 1985. For one, Brazil could see a reversal of its traditional
multilateral stance and support a multi-polar balance of power.

Bolsonaro has
signaled his disdain of the
United Nations—describing it as a meeting place for communists—and
his intention to withdraw from
the UN Human Rights Council. A recently converted Evangelical, he
also announced his intention to move the Brazilian
embassy to Jerusalem. To cap things off, the head of Bolsonaro’s
party denounced the
Organization of American States (OAS) as part of a globalist conspiracy. It’s
conceivable that Brazil may even opt to join NATO, unthinkable just a few short
months ago.

As we sift through the burning embers of the presidential
campaign, what are some of Bolsonaro’s key foreign
policy priorities after he assumes office in January 2019?

One of Bolsonaro’s most consequential foreign policy shifts is
already in motion: the tightening of Brazil’s alliance with the US. The
incoming president and his offspring, three of whom are elected
politicians, openly revere
Donald Trump. Bolsonaro has surrounded himself with like-minded
advisers.

A candidate for foreign minister, Ernesto Fraga Araújo, a career-diplomat,
has written a short treatise against
globalization and praising Trump’s defense of Christian values
against Islamism. Bolsonaro’s open support for the US—and validation of Trump’s
positions on trade, rights, the military, and the environment—is in contrast to
virtually all previous administration in Brazil’s history. Steve
Bannon has lavished him
with praise. And in his congratulatory
call to Bolsonaro this week, Trump said he looks forward to
tighter cooperation, particularly on security matters.

Throughout the campaign Bolsonaro also spoke frequently of
possible regime change in Venezuela. In this, he differentiated himself from
previous Worker Party administrations that considered Hugo Chávez and
Nicolás Maduro strategic allies. The outgoing government of
Michel Temer took a less kind stance than his predecessors, working with
Latin American countries and the OAS to isolate the Maduro
regime.

However, Temer studiously avoided talk of military action or Brazilian
support for US and European penalties (claiming that the UN Security Council
was the only body that could legitimately impose such measures). But with more
than 56,000
Venezuelan refugees seeking sanctuary in Brazil and Bolsonaro
fanning the flames—describing
refugees as “scum of the earth,” the possibility of economic
sanctions and even military action cannot be discounted. Bolsonaro will likely
pack his cabinet full of former
generals and is keen to expand the army’s role in domestic
security across the country.

Bolsonaro will seek to expand trade, albeit mostly through
bilateral deals and a transactionalist “Brazil First” approach. A staunch
protectionist for most of his 27 years in politics, Bolsonaro softened his
tone before and during the presidential campaign. He won over much of Brazil’s
financial elite by bringing in Paulo Guedes, a US-trained economist, as a
would-be economics “super” minister. Guedes has said that pension reform,
privatization, and lower taxes are his priorities, prompting stock markets to
soar after Bolsonaro handily won the first round in early
October.

Along with Guedes, he has a dim view of multilateral free trade,
including the South American customs union, Mercosur, though they are said to
favor the free-trading Pacific Alliance. In contrast to previous presidents,
Bolsonaro has also singled out the BRICS group for criticism.

Even as Bolsonaro pivots to the US, there are signs that he is
likely to push back on China. China is Brazil’s largest investor, having
overtaken US as the country’s largest investor in 2015. In 2015, Chinese
President Xi Jinping committed to doubling two-way
trade to $500 billion within the decade. He also said Chinese
investment could increase by another $250 billion by 2020.

Once confined to
commodities and manufacturing, Chinese firms are busily expanding into
logistics and renewable energy. Bolsonaro clearly intends to roll-up the red
carpet that his predecessor, Michel Temer, laid out. In what one journalist
described as an anti-China rant, Bolsonaro said “China is not
buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil.” Chinese diplomats are looking
nervously on.

Despite saying he expected to take Brazil out of the Paris
Climate agreement, Bolsonaro now claims he
intends to keep the country in it. He recently described the
agreement, which Brazil ratified in 2016, as foreign conspiracy of “greenhouse
fables” to put the Amazon under “world control.”

This is a radical departure
from Brazil’s previous stance as a major backer of multilateral efforts to
reduce climate change. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is flirting with the idea of
merging the environment and
agriculture ministries and stripping funding from environmental
protection agencies. Brazil’s massive agri-business,
construction, and mining lobbies are salivating at the prospect,
as are extractive companies around the world. The consequences for
the Amazon, and global climate change, are dire.

In his campaign manifesto, Bolsonaro promised to step-up the
fight against organized crime at home and abroad. While offering few concrete
details, in recent calls with US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo he confirmed that he will support tougher
measures to counter transnational criminal groups.

Some commentators describe
his domestic stance
on drug policy as draconian, singling out his staunch
opposition to decriminalization and measures to ratchet-up police and military action against
anyone suspected of involvement in drugs. The new administration will likely
expand regional counter-narcotics efforts, particularly along the Bolivian,
Colombian, and Peruvian borders. When it comes to global drug policy issues
more generally, Brazil’s incoming administration will likely do what the US
tells it to.

There are good reasons to take Bolsonaro at his word. The
executive branch exerts considerable control over foreign policy, including the
ministry of external affairs, with comparatively limited inputs from Congress
and the Senate. What’s more, Bolsonaro has strong support from his PSL party
and will work to build partnerships with lower-level politicians from lesser
known parties in Congress who will seek to align themselves to gain influence.

While his immediate focus will be on pushing through public security and
economic (and later social policy)
reforms, he can earn a number of easy victories on the foreign policy
front and satisfy his base by delivering on his commitments.
This will be especially tempting given the many domestic challenges facing
Brazil—not least a faltering economy, high levels of unemployment, and
entitlement reform.

It can be tempting to dismiss Brazil as an inconsequential
player in geopolitical affairs. While a Latin American goliath, the country
punches well below its weight in diplomatic and military terms. Given its size
and economic output—and despite its geographic and linguistic isolation— Brazil
should be a heavyweight.

The country accounts for 40 percent of Latin America’s
population and roughly the same share of its regional GDP. Yet the world’s
fourth largest country by population and eighth by economy has not been a major
presence on the global stage for years. This may change.

Brazil could help put
the brake on global multilateral action—particularly on issues related
to protecting the environment—at precisely the moment when the world
needs enlightened leadership. Make no mistake, the incoming government’s
posture on issues ranging from climate change to open trade has global
implications, not just for the region, but for the world.

This commentary is written in the author’s personal capacity.

******

This article was poreviously published by The Global Observatory. Read the original here.