Cultural and Economic Overlaps Between Brazil and the USA

  Brazil's land border, which it shares with 10 South American countries, is five times the size of the border between the US and Mexico. Brazil is the world's fifth largest country by population. (For context, Indonesia ranks fourth.) It possesses an abundance of natural resources, including the world's greatest freshwater reserves. It is home to two-thirds of the famous Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest. It is the second largest economy in the Western Hemisphere and, depending on how you calculate it, the seventh or eighth largest in the world.

Brazil cannot be understood without first appreciating its vast size, which is larger than the lower 48 states of the United States.

The state of São Paulo alone has a larger economy than Argentina. Brazil has more cities with populations greater than one million than the United States. It is the world's second largest agricultural exporter, following the United States. It gets 75 percent of its energy from hydroelectric sources, which are some of the cleanest energy platforms among large nations, and its present oil and gas production puts it in the top ten energy producers in the world. The development of Brazil's pre-salt oil deposits could propel the country to even greater worldwide production. Brazil has Embraer, the world's third largest aircraft firm behind Boeing and Airbus, as well as Gerdau, the Americas' leading producer of long steel. And this is only an example. These basic facts about Brazil must be remembered in order to put current events, especially today's headlines, into context.

It is also impossible to discuss the relationship between Brazil and the United States without being impressed by our numerous and frequently profound commonalities.

 

There may not be two huge countries in the world that share so much, including a vastness that defies easy description. Brazil, like the United States, is often inward-looking, the center of its own world, while still being open and welcoming to outsiders. Beyond the misconceptions, Brazil has a distinct national identity and character—a racially diverse people with a historically Portuguese core. However, anyone can become a Brazilian. Naturalized Brazilians, like those in the United States, are viewed as Brazilians rather than outsiders—hyphenated, perhaps, but Brazilian nonetheless. For example, Brazil has more ethnic Japanese than anyplace else in the world, and more ethnic Lebanese than anywhere else in the Middle East. (Over the last several years, Brazil has absorbed more Syrian refugees than any other country in the hemisphere, and it is ready to accept more.) Most Americans are familiar with Brazil's diverse races and ethnicities, which include African, Indigenous, Asian, and European. We also have a largely analogous history, which includes European "discovery" and following waves of immigration into a relatively unknown "empty" continent. And we share a tragic history of slavery, which has shaped the social and cultural environment and continues to pose severe issues in both of our countries' cultures today. Significantly, we are the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere, with free and open media, a strong streak of self-criticism, and a genuine sense that we should be able to do better—for our own people and the globe. For these and other reasons, most Brazilians have a great affection for and generally positive opinions of the United States, as seen by most opinion polls.
Brazil and the United States have fundamental similarities, including shared democratic values, which informs the diplomatic view that we are "natural partners." They are the mutual blood, sinew, and bones of the bilateral partnership. However, we should not use lofty clichés to obscure our fundamental disagreements. We have our opinions on the relative roles of the state and the market in the economy, the legitimacy of using force or other coercive measures to address threats to international peace and security, and the efficacy of multilateral fora, particularly the United Nations, as the pinnacle of diplomatic efforts, among others. In dealing with our Brazilian counterparts, US diplomats must also contend with a sometimes perplexing (to us) insistence on Brazil's natural sovereignty, as well as its desire to forge its own path, free of perceived over-reliance on one or more of its partners, including the United States. It is difficult for Americans because it appears that Brazil's symbolic defense of sovereignty, known as strategic balancing, often takes precedence over what we might consider the straightforwardly pragmatic pursuit of its own national interests.

The majority of our disputes, however, are insignificant in the larger scheme of things. 

They are conflicts over tactics rather than outcomes, about how we get there rather than where we want to go. We generally share larger strategic goals, such as a more representative democracy, increased prosperity for more of our people, environmental sustainability, expanded social inclusion both within and outside our own countries, and a more peaceful and just world order with institutions that better reflect 21st century realities. While tensions between Brazil and the United States in recent years have contributed to the idea that our bilateral relationship is underperforming, this is changing. President Rousseff's official visit to the United States from June 30 to July 2, as well as her discussions with President Obama in Washington, far exceeded our expectations in terms of resuming a productive, forward-looking partnership. We are now ready to make the reality of improved Brazil-US cooperation in line with its deep-seated, far-reaching promise. If one thing is evident, it is that Brazil and the United States can accomplish far more together—regionally, internationally, and multilaterally, across a wide range of issues—than any of us can alone.