Global Issues
BRAZIL-US: Obama Feeds Hopes
Brazil expects its international standing to be bolstered by more cooperative relations with the United States under the presidency of Barack Obama, as well as a shift in Washington’s position on the issue of climate change and with respect to Cuba.
In his weekly radio programme Monday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called once again for an end to the nearly five-decade U.S. embargo against Cuba, which he said would be a first sign of change in U.S. policy towards Latin America that has been 'misguided for a long time.'
Putting an end to Cuba’s exclusion from the Organisation of American States (OAS) is 'a desire shared by Latin America as a whole,' and Obama’s Latin America policy 'should start off by lifting the embargo,' Brazilian diplomat João Clemente Baena Soares, a former OAS secretary general, told IPS.
The Obama administration is likely to benefit Brazil, 'not because of what he can do for Brazil, but because of what he can do for the future of humanity, if he adopts a 21st century agenda, unlike his two predecessors, who followed a 19th century agenda,' said Senator Cristovam Buarque, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The environment, for example, will have to 'form part of his overall economic policies, and not just be the focus of isolated measures,' he commented to IPS.
In addition, his government will have to tackle poverty 'not as a lack of wealth, but as a product of social exclusion,' and will have to 'respect diversity in the world, as part of a commitment to peace,' he said.
Brazil would enjoy indirect benefits from such policies, as would humanity as a whole, said the senator.
He said, for example, that this country would thus be able to expand its exports of ethanol to the United States, not because of a specific opening to Brazil’s alcohol fuel but due to a policy agenda in favour of renewable energy and less harmful to the global climate.
'I am very optimistic with regard to the Obama administration’s attitude towards the question of climate change,' given the naming of Nobel Physics Prize-winner Steven Chu as energy secretary and the appointment of other authorities with strong track records on the environment, said Fabio Feldmann, executive secretary of the Forum on Climate Change and Biodiversity of the state of São Paulo.
A positive change in Washington’s position will favour 'an important alliance with Brazil in the decisive negotiations on a new global climate change agreement at the conference in Copenhagen in December, Feldmann told IPS.
In Brazilian diplomatic circles, there are hopes of a new U.S. foreign policy which, although unlikely to bring immediate results for Brazil, would promote its international standing as an important actor on crucial matters dealt with at the multilateral level.
Baena Soares said he hoped for 'respectful and cooperative relations, which do not ignore Brazil’s importance.' He added that there should also be changes in bilateral relations, which were marked by sharp differences during the administration of outgoing President George W. Bush, on questions ranging from the environment to Iraq, trade negotiations and biofuels.
Expectations are high, but it is necessary to wait and see what concrete actions President Obama will take after he is sworn in on Tuesday, said the diplomat, who is also a former deputy foreign minister.
On the trade front, democrats have historically taken a more protectionist stance than Republicans, as is frequently pointed out in Brazil. But 'in times of crisis like today’s, that can change, because the emphasis is on curbing unemployment, and foreign trade can help reach that goal,' said Baena Soares.
The tendency is towards a growing appreciation of Brazil’s leadership role in Latin America, said Feldmann, who was a member of the constituent assembly that rewrote Brazil’s constitution in 1988 and was elected to Congress twice in the 1990s.
He also said he hoped that Washington’s relations with the most leftist governments in Latin America, like those of Bolivia and Venezuela, would become less tense.
With respect to Cuba, he agreed that the embargo is not justified and that lifting it would bring about a major shift in the scenario in Latin America.
But removing the embargo, which was put in place in 1962 and tightened in the 1990s, depends on approval by Congress, which Obama would not be able to count on in the short term, said Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, the author of several books on the history of relations between the United States and Latin America.
What the new president could do, said the analyst, is to scrap more recent restrictions adopted by Bush applying to visits and remittances to Cuba by Cuban-Americans.
But Lula expects 'a sign' from Obama of good will towards Cuba, as an indicator of improvements in relations between the United States and Latin America. The Latin America and Caribbean summit organised by Lula a month ago in Bahía in northern Brazil issued a call for an end to the embargo and admitted Cuba to the Rio Group, Latin America’s highest policy coordination forum.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service