For over a decade United States-Brazil relations have been tangled up in deliberations for a Free Trade in the Americas Agreement (FTAA). Last year's Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina did little to unravel the knots. Instead, the meeting confirmed the limits of the Bush administration's “competitive liberalization” months after the troubled ratification of CAFTA-DR in a close and questioned vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. 1 The U.S. government could only watch as Brazil and its Mercosur partners, along with Venezuela, shunned the FTAA in favor of continued efforts to deepen South American economic and political integration. Given the demise of the FTAA, the future of U.S.-Brazil relations may increasingly depend upon the participation of many of those sectors of civil society marginalized from the free trade talks. 2

Brazil and the United States have had a long, sometimes difficult relationship with plenty of frustrated expectations through the years. 3 Since both countries assumed the co-chair of the FTAA deliberations in 2002, a growing number of prominent U.S. foreign policy leaders have called for a strategic partnership with Brazil based largely on free trade and economic integration. 4 Such calls have been frustrated as the FTAA proceedings subjected the bilateral relationship to narrowly conceived, but powerful private interests that inflamed public sentiment in both countries. The FTAA nearly derailed at Miami in 2003, and has finally run itself into a dead end at Mar del Plata, frustrating those U.S. policymakers seeking to bolster North American hegemony in the region.

Commercial clashes amidst deepening economic integration will continue to shape U.S.-Brazil relations in the foreseeable future, but the fall of the FTAA opens new terrain for civil society to stand up and be counted in matters of bilateral relations.

The FTAA deliberations failed to quell commercial conflict or incorporate representative constituencies into the negotiations for hemispheric-wide economic integration. As Anderson and Cavanagh point out, the FTAA model did not address the issues that haunt the Americas, including inequality and poverty, environmental and social injustice, and the need for greater political participation to strengthen democratic governance. 5 Accordingly, they conclude, “One of the factors in the failure of the FTAA process was the lack of meaningful civil society consultation.” Government negotiators and powerful business interests from both Brazil and the United States worked to exclude diverse and representative voices of civil society in the FTAA deliberations.

At the sidelines, such transnational movements as the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) developed an alternative integration architecture that incorporates issues of concern to workers, consumers, and citizens throughout the Americas. 6 The HSA and others succeeded in calling attention to the dreadful outcomes associated with U.S.-designed free trade agreements, such as NAFTA 7, and eventually contributed to the FTAA's dismal fate at Miami and Mar del Plata.

Even with the FTAA at a dead end, there is substantial work ahead to curb Washington's appetite for coercive, “divide and conquer” bargaining with Brazil and Mercosur, and steer bilateral relations away from the powerful private interests that held the table during the free trade talks. It is now a critical moment to bring civil society into U.S.-Brazil relations and develop a binational strategic agenda that moves social movements and civil society organizations (CSOs) from both countries toward the intersections of mutual interest and collective action.

Commercial Policy and Civil Society

Relations between the United States and Brazil have often evolved through commercial conflicts, from instant coffee in the 1960s, the computer industry in the 1980s, and now the plethora of market access issues that reflect the unequal exchanges that lie at the heart of corporate globalization. These conflicts arise from the articulation of private interests through public authorities charged with foreign policymaking. Trade and investment tensions are aggravated and take on broader political importance due to the asymmetrical foundation of bilateral relations and the U.S. propensity to engage in coercive bargaining and “third rail” policies. 8 Too often the United States chooses to “leverage” Brazil's cooperation rather than negotiate settlements that recognize national development priorities and stretch negotiating “win-sets” toward broader, more popular interests in both countries. It is precisely these commercial spats and pitched policy battles over private interests and national development that marginalize important forces of civil society, especially those in the United States. Yet, the history of civil society's influence over U.S.-Brazil relations, albeit sporadic, suggests that opportunities do arise to shape the framework of bilateral relations and steer the outcome of particular and often strategic issues.

A host of corporations have certainly learned this lesson. Early on, U.S. business leaders adopted strategies reliant upon organizations of civil society to penetrate Brazil's policymaking arenas. During the post-World War I era, the U.S.-based Good Roads Movement drove its message of more highways and cars to Brazil. Fueled by the American Road Builders Association and the American Automobile Association, the movement joined with Brazilian political leaders and the country's own automobile club to shift Brazil's development path from railway to motor vehicle-based transportation. 9 These efforts represented the strategic collaboration of U.S. and Brazilian representatives of North American oil interests, automobile manufacturers and their Brazilian distributors, the road-building industry, and circles within Brazil's political elite. As Richard Downes reports, this complex of business interests and organizations harnessed capital, political support, and U.S. and Brazilian government loans and subsidies to dramatically change Brazilian development policy. Downes concludes that such an episode, “highlights the critical role of foreign-based but domestically-active interest groups in gaining broad acceptance for a foreign economic presence on a massive scale.” 10 This cautionary tale illustrates how CSOs can be wielded as tools of narrow private interests and imperialism, playing critical policy networking roles to transform private interest into public policy, both in the United States and Brazil.

Today, the exclusive Brazil-U.S. Business Council represents sixty of the largest U.S.-headquartered agricultural, manufacturing, and service sector corporations, as well as several Brazilian firms with business in the United States. The Council is composed of member-corporations such as Citigroup, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft. Current corporate executive officers and former U.S. ambassadors to Brazil sit on the Council's Executive Committee. Taken together, its members' U.S.-based political action committees are responsible for millions of dollars in contributions to candidates for Brazilian federal office and incalculable influence over international economic policy. The Council also coordinates its activities with similar business directed CSOs, such as the Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) and the American Chamber of Commerce in Brazil (AmCham). Representatives of the Council regularly meet with U.S. and Brazilian policymakers to affirm a range of policy preferences. The Council supports the U.S.-styled FTAA with strict provisions for intellectual property rights, universal treatment in government procurement, and liberalization of financial services.

Much as the American Road Builders Association and the American Automobile Association did in the 1920s and 1930s, the Council and its associates are paving the way for advancing private interests through bilateral relations, free trade agreements (FTAs), and multilateral negotiations through the Doha round of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Without a counterbalance, the Council and its allies will continue to frame U.S-Brazil relations and shut out representative voices of civil society.

Binational Civil Society Cooperation

There is an impressive history from which to develop a countervailing force to intervene in policy formation and bilateral relations. During the last century U.S.-based membership associations, foundations, educational institutions, and religious and social organizations engaged in notable cooperation with Brazilian partners. The Ford and the Kellogg Foundations financed a collage of private foreign aid programs that played an important role in the rise of key Brazilian CSOs over the years. Such project sponsors continue to play a critical financing role for such CSOs as ActionAid, the Brazilian Association of Non-governmental Organizations (ABONG), Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas (IBASE), and VivaRio among many others. 11

During Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-85), organizations arose within U.S. society to work with Brazilians to influence U.S. foreign policy and defend human rights in Brazil. Referring to the evolution of U.S. human rights policy in the 1970s and 1980s, James Green argues that, “The catalysts for change in official foreign policy initiatives often have been nongovernmental activists.” 12

Green tracks this evolution to the role of U.S.-based activists, academics, and clerics in organizing a campaign to publicize the Brazilian dictatorship's terror and repression, as well as the U.S. government's complicity. He summarizes that, “The building of a national network of activists, the documentation of systematic torture and repression, the public positioning of prominent figures against human rights abuses, and the patient building of contacts with the press all contributed to the forging of an image of Brazil under military rule as a land of torture and terror … The groundwork laid by these early activists dealing with Brazil, especially the impact of their efforts in the press, provided an important basis for subsequent political organizing during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.” 13

This organizing terrain was largely tilled in collaboration with Brazilians who opposed their nation's authoritarian rulers and passionately sought out opportunities to build international opposition to the dictatorship. Green reports of the key efforts by Brazilians Marcos Arruda and Anivaldo Padilha to galvanize U.S. support for the cause and play leading roles in disseminating the information and analysis needed by the U.S.-based campaign against torture and repression in Brazil. The military rulers' repression and censorship made it difficult for Brazilians and their organizations to coordinate collective action with prospective U.S. partners. Nevertheless, this limited experience does illustrate the critical role that autonomous organizations of civil society, working in collaboration and across borders, can carry out to influence foreign policy and U.S.-Brazil relations.

Brazilian and U.S.-based environmental defense and indigenous rights organizations have also worked in strategic cooperation. 14 For example, a network of Brazilian and U.S. environmental organizations converged to influence the international financing and project design of the Porto Velho-Rio Branco highway (BR-364) project during the 1980s. 15 The U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation worked with Brazilian partners, such as the Comiss ã o Pastoral da Terra (CPT) and the Associa ção Brasileira de Antropologia (ABA), to pressure the Brazilian government and the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) to greatly modify the original project. In 1987 these efforts led the IDB to suspend its financial contributions to the project. This case also demonstrates the strategic potential exercised by “domestically active interest groups” who work together and across borders to influence policy and steer international cooperation. However, such potential is contingent upon the opportunity, capacity, and willingness of forces within U.S. and Brazilian civil society to collaborate on a binational agenda that encompasses mutual interests and addresses regional and global problems.

Efforts are underway to explore this potential. For example, the Friends of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (FMST) extends political solidarity and financial assistance to the MST while also conducting educational outreach around the United States. The FMST is part of an international movement in support of the MST and land reform, and often works in coalition with the international small farmers' movement, Via Campesina. 16 The Brazil Foundation based in New York, serves as a “bridge” between the United States and Brazil by soliciting donations from U.S. sources and passing them on to social assistance and community building projects in Brazil. 17

Also, Brazil's National Metalworker Confederation is teaming up with the U.S. Steelworkers Union to confront the Brazilian-owned Gerdau company's lockout of workers at its facilities in Beaumont, Texas. Recently, the Steelworkers Local 8586 leadership visited Brazil to work with the Brazilian labor movement and meet with Brazil's Minister of Labor, Luiz Marinho. 18 Lastly, the Brazil Strategy Network played an unprecedented role in planning the official visit of Brazilian Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Luiz Dulci, to the United States in March of 2005 to initiate discussions with U.S.-based CSOs and Brazilian immigrant communities. 19 These efforts advance bilateral relations and provide fertile terrain for expanding strategic cooperation that challenges the privileged access and political influence of commercial interests in the United States and Brazil.

Toward a Strategic Agenda

U.S.-Brazil relations unexpectedly gushed after the election of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October of 2002. 20 Presidents Bush and Lula quickly gravitated to presidential diplomacy, setting up an unprecedented cabinet level summit in June of 2003. Bush and Lula pledged to “deepen the U.S.-Brazilian partnership in mutually positive ways, always seizing opportunities to advance the diversified interests we have in common, always seeking to reconcile differences through dialogue and engagement.” 21

Both governments claimed that the two countries were “crossing a new threshold into a higher stage in [the] relationship,” even though they could only settle on a joint venture to improve HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in Portuguese-speaking Africa at the summit. 22

Since this historic meeting, the two countries have engaged in perfunctory cooperation on a number of limited projects in the areas of energy, climate control, narcotics related law enforcement, and the U.S. Container Security Initiative. Brazil and the United States continue to maintain a panoply of official consultative mechanisms that ensure regular discussion of issues ranging from military cooperation to the U.S.-Brazil Educational Partnership. In addition, the United States provides modest military assistance, Export-Import Bank loans, and approximately $15 million in annual program funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Aside from these official programs, Brazil's command of the United Nations Peacekeeping forces in Haiti may also demonstrate bilateral cooperation, sort of a necessary but not sufficient step toward garnering U.S. support for Brazil's campaign to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Even adding up Haiti, the joint communiqués, consultations, and U.S. assistance programs, bilateral cooperation on non-commercial issues of regional and global import is underwhelming.

On the other hand, forces within civil society are beginning to lay the foundation for greater cooperation across borders. Following up from Minister Luiz Dulci's U.S. visit in March, various initiatives were undertaken to broaden participation in U.S.-Brazilian affairs. In June, the California State Senate's innovative California-Brazil Partnership was launched under the leadership of state Senator Liz Figueroa who appointed a strategic action team comprised of leaders from a range of representative segments of civil society. The team is charged with developing innovative approaches and activities to increase cooperation between the state and Brazil. 23

Also, the Brazil Strategy Network and Boston's Brazilian Immigrant Center worked with a team of community leaders throughout the New England area to organize the Brazilian Leadership Summit in Boston during October. The Summit attracted the participation of the Brazilian immigrant community, immigrant rights and advocacy organizations, activists involved with U.S.-Brazil relations, and elected officials from both the United States and Brazil. The Summit organizers drafted the “Carta de Boston,” that now serves as a blueprint for organizing a national network of Brazilian immigrants. This important step was followed in November by the Brazilian Immigrant Conference in San Francisco, organized by the Brazilian consulate in cooperation with various CSOs and community leaders, with representatives from the Boston meeting. Lastly, the Brazil Strategy Network recently held its national meeting in New York City with the participation of Sergio Haddad, vice president of international relations for Brazil's ABONG. These organizations are working together to organize a series of meetings in the United States and Brazil to explore ways of organizing greater cooperation between representative forces of civil society. Taken together, these recent steps indicate that increasing numbers of CSOs in the United States are exploring innovative ways to participate in U.S.-Brazil affairs and to expand civil society's impact upon U.S.-Brazil relations.

Expanding participation to offset and eventually diminish the influence of private commercial interests requires the development of a binational, civil society-centered strategic agenda. A strategic agenda should inspire a “global good neighbor ethic” founded upon reciprocity, pursuit of mutual well-being, and a dedicated cooperation that eliminates coercion from bilateral affairs. 24 Referring to the World Social Forum, but directly relevant to the work of developing a binational strategic agenda for civil society, Emir Sader advocates that such efforts, “recreate[s] the possibility of an alliance between radical forces in the periphery and those in the core … to address the themes of an alternative globalization.” 25

A strategic agenda must deepen participation across all segments of society and reach deeper into policymaking arenas. It should facilitate the convergence of CSOs across borders and fortify the existing international issue networks that have played such an important role in the areas of human rights and environmental justice. The HSA provided a visionary platform from which to oppose the FTAA. A binational, civil society-centered strategic agenda can build from such a foundation by creating a framework through which a growing movement of CSOs and their networks can extend their reach and participate more actively in policymaking circles now cornered by powerful particular interests.

Developing a truly representative binational consultative mechanism could serve to identify points of mutual interest and promote consensus around particular policy issues. Inspired and framed in part by the European Economic and Social Committee 26 and the HSA, a “Brazil-U.S. Economic and Social Committee” could coordinate among CSOs and international issue networks to play an active and strategic role in framing the binational agenda and staking out a prominent space in policymaking arenas. Such a consultative mechanism could untangle private interests from the broader, representative concerns shared by both Brazilians and North Americans. Juxtaposed to the Brazil-U.S. Business Council, a Brazil-U.S. Economic and Social Committee could embrace policies and bilateral cooperation that represent solidaristic solutions to the regional and global problems that challenge both countries' leadership.

Lastly, a strategic agenda should provide for concerted action on a number of substantive policy issues that treat specific bilateral affairs that intersect with regional and global challenges. For example, the United States and Brazil play very important but often opposing roles in global efforts to confront the HIV/AIDS crisis and lessen greenhouse gas emissions. 27 Both countries have yet to exhaust all options for concerted action to address these mounting problems. Greater cooperation between Brazil and the United States is urgently needed to lower the costs of AIDS treatment throughout the world and assure the implementation of the best available prevention strategies. This type of cooperation has already extended AIDS treatment to Haiti with remarkable success. Also, Brazil and the United States are the largest producers and consumers of ethanol, a renewable fuel whose production foments rural development and whose use lessens greenhouse gas emissions. Ethanol is poised to become an important tool for both developed and developing countries committed to the Kyoto Protocol emission targets, but its potential is sidelined by commercial conflict. Cooperation between the United States and Brazil is required to create the standards and infrastructure necessary for the emergence of ethanol and flex fuel vehicle global markets. Global warming and AIDS are only two of a growing list of public concerns that transcend national borders and invite greater cooperation between the United States and Brazil.

The true test of a binational, civil society-centered strategic agenda is whether such a process can guide and amplify the efforts of CSOs and international issue networks dedicated to pressing the two largest governments of the Americas toward greater cooperation on urgent issues of public interest. The defeat of the FTAA makes this process viable. However, greater efforts must be made to bring civil society into U.S.-Brazil relations to confront the problems that matter most.

End Notes

1. For more information and analysis about this House vote, see Public Citizen/Global Trade Watch postings regarding CAFTA-DR and the vote at http://www.citizen.org/trade/cafta/.
2. See Laura Carlsen's “Timely Demise for Free Trade Area of the Americas,” IRC Americas Program Commentary, Nov. 23, 2005, accessed at http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2954.
3. For discussions of the special relationship see Stanley E. Hilton, “The United States, Brazil, and the Cold War, 1945-1960: End of the Special Relationship,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 68, No. 3 (December, 1981) and Wesson, Robert Wesson, The United States and Brazil: Limits of Influence, New York, Praeger Publishers. 1981:11-31. For an overview of the historical evolution of bilateral relations, see Mônica Hirst, The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations, New York, Routledge, 2005.
4. There are a number of prominent U.S. foreign policymakers who have made such a call, including Peter Hakim, “The Reluctant Partner,” Foreign Relations, Vol. 83, No. 1(January/February 2004), Jeffrey J. Schott, “The Free Trade of the Americas: Current Status and Prospects,” The Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Miami European Union Center, University of Miami, Vol. 5, No.15 (July, 2005), and Sidney Weintraub, “The Brazil-U.S. Relationship: A Tale of Mutual Ignorance,” Issues in International Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, No. 30, June 2002, as well as “A Letter to the President and a Memorandum on U.S. Policy Toward Brazil,” Statement of an Independent Taskforce sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen Robert, Chair and Kenneth Maxwell, Project Director, February 12, 2001.
5. See Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, “After the FTAA: Lesson from Europe for the Americas,” IRC/Foreign Policy In Focus Special Report, June 23, 2005.
6. The Hemispheric Social Alliance offered a well-organized and thoroughly detailed alternative that was largely ignored by both the United States and Brazil. For a review and comparison with the FTAA see, “Competing Visions for the Hemisphere: The Official FTAA Draft versus Alternatives for the Americas,” Hemispheric Social Alliance, January 2002, and accessed online at www.asc-hsa.org.
7. See Laura Carlsen, “The Price of Going to Market,” Americas Program (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, September 19, 2005).
8. For an exemplar analysis of such a pattern, see John M. Talbot, “The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1997), and Ka Zeng, “Trade Structure and the Effectiveness of America's ‘Aggressively Unilateral' Trade Policy,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 46, 2002. For a description and analysis of U.S. “third rail” policies, see N. Gregory Mankiw and Phillip L. Swagel, “Anti-dumping: The Third Rail of Trade Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 4 (July-August, 2005).
9. Richard Downes, “Autos over Rails: How U.S. Business Supplanted the British in Brazil, 1910-1928,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol.24, No. 3 (October, 1992).
10. Ibid, pp. 583.
11. For more information consult these organizations' websites: ActionAid, http://www.actionaid.org.br/, ABONG http://www.abong.org.br/, IBASE http://www.ibase.org.br/, and VivaRio http://www.vivario.org.br/.
12. James N. Green, “Clerics, Exiles, and Academics: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States, 1969-1974,” Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 45, No. 1(Spring 2003:88).
13. Ibid, pp 89-90.
14. For an overview see Maria Guadalupe Rodrigues, “Environmental Protection Issue Networks in Amazonia,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2000) and Rafael A. Duarte Villa, “Formas de Influência das ONGs na Política Internacional Contemporânea,” Revista de Sociologia e Política, No. 12 (June, 1999).
15. Eduardo Viola, “El Ambientalismo brasileño: De la denuncia y concientización a la institucionalización e el desarrollo sustenable,” Nueva Sociedad, No. 122 (November-December, 1992), as cited in Villa (1999:26).
16. For more information on the FMST see http://www.mstbrazil.org, and for Via Campesina, see http://www.viacampesina.org.
17. For more information on the Brazil Foundation see http://www.brazilfoundation.org/.
18. For a brief report see Local 8586's website at http://local8586.tripod.com/.
19. For more about the Brazil Strategy Network access its website at http://brazilstrategy.net/.
20. For a briefing of the context for this presidential diplomacy see Matthew Flynn, “Bush and Lula: A Collision of Two Worlds,” Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center, July 10, 2003.
21. See the “Joint Statement Between the United States of America and the Federative Republic of Brazil,” Office of the Press Secretary, The White House/President George W. Bush, June 20, 2003.
22. See the communiqué, “U.S.-Brazil Joint Venture on HIV/AIDS in Lusophone Africa,” U.S. Information Agency, State Department, June 20, 2003.
23. A copy of “Toward a California-Brazil Partnership: A Strategic Action Plan” can be downloaded from the publication page of the Brazil Strategy Network at http://brazilstrategy.net/page/newsletters.html.
24. This ethic is advanced by “A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations,” co-authored by Tom Barry, Salih Booker, Laura Carlsen, Marie Dennis, and John Gershman, an International Relations Center/Foreign Policy In Focus Special Report, May 2005. Principle three of the ethic is particularly germane to international civil society cooperation.
25. Emir Sader, “Beyond Civil Society: The Left after Porto Alegre,” New Left Review, Vol. 17 (September/October, 2002:97-98).
26. See Anderson and Cavanagh (2005:11).
27. For brief analyses of these two issues see Mark Langevin, “The Brazilian Model to Fight HIV/AIDS,” The Globalist, June 28, 2005, http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4605, and “ Fueling Sustainable Globalization: Brazil and The Ethanol Alternative,” InfoBrazil, Sept 17 - 23, 2005, http://www.infobrazil.com/.

Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., langevin@chapman.eduis a contributor to the IRC Americas Program, www.americaspolicy.org, and assistant professor of political science at Chapman University College. He is also national organizer for the Brazil Strategy Network, http://brazilstrategy.net/, and sits on Chapman University's “Critical Friends” board of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project. He has lived and worked in Brazil, conducted research on United States-Brazil economic relations, is an editorial board member of Revista Humana of the Department of Human and Natural Sciences at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, and is an appointee to the California State Senate—California/Brazil Partnership's Strategic Action Team.

For More Information

Brazil Strategy Network
http://brazilstrategy.net/
A U.S.-based network of academics, activists, trade union leaders, and representatives from non-governmental organizations dedicated to Brazil-related issues. The group was formed in October of 2002 in Washington, DC, following the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as President of Brazil.

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