When it emancipated itself from Portugal, Brazil had to gain recognition from the international community of its sovereignty. That is why Independence, whose bicentennial is celebrated this Wednesday (7), also marks the birth of Brazilian diplomacy, which reaches 200 years with the challenge of breaking with the country’s isolation and the pariah image acquired during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
Independence inaugurated a national diplomacy proper, which began under the baton of José Bonifácio (1763-1838). Considered one of the main advisers of Dom Pedro 1º, he becomes the first chancellor of Brazil – although that was not the official title.
“In the beginning, Brazil had something like four employees and two messengers on horseback. That was all diplomacy at the time of José Bonifácio”, says Rubens Ricupero, ambassador and former Minister of the Environment and Finance.
Bonifácio’s objective was for Brazil to be recognized without making any concessions to England, the main power at the time. The sovereign attitude cannot prosper. In 1823, the chancellor is overthrown from office, arrested and exiled with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by Dom Pedro. The emperor himself assumes Brazil’s foreign relations — and with a completely opposite stance.
In the eagerness to obtain quick recognition, and also interested in securing rights to the throne of Portugal, Dom Pedro 1º bowed to England and accepted a treaty full of concessions. Brazil undertakes to assume half of the Portuguese foreign debt, a good part of which had been contracted precisely to fight Brazilian independence. Hence the idea that the country would have bought its emancipation.
Interestingly, the two strategies of international insertion that dominated the first moment of independent Brazil —the sovereign position intended by Bonifácio and the alignment with a great power adopted by the emperor— mark the standards that diplomacy followed throughout its 200 years.
From the end of the 19th century until the 1930s, foreign policy was shaped according to the unfolding of European imperialism. It is in this context that the performance of the Barão de Rio Branco (1845-1912) to consolidate national borders stands out. Considered the patron of Brazilian diplomacy, he held the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1902 to 1912, and adopted a stance of rapprochement with the United States.
The proximity to Washington promoted by Rio Branco will become a paradigm of Brazilian foreign policy for a long time to come. During the Dutra administration (1946-1951), the posture was so striking that it earned the derogatory title of automatic alignment.
The return to a strategy of autonomous international insertion only occurred with Jânio Quadros and João Goulart (1961-1964), who promoted a so-called policy not subordinated to the North Americans. But the independent stance puts an end to the military coup. The Castelo Branco government, the first of the dictatorship, represents an almost total bet on the USA.
According to Ricupero, 1964 was the first time that a foreign policy issue became an important cause of a coup d’état in Brazil. “All the other coups had been for internal reasons.
This time the independent policy that was seen by the right as pro-Cuba was a powerful element,” he says.
It is from the Geisel government (1974-1979) onwards that there is a departure from the US, and a more independent foreign policy returns to the surface. Until the end of the dictatorship, despite the different strategies, there was a certain compatibility of values, based on autonomy and greater participation in the world, without an ideological vision. The logic changes with the Bolsonaro government.
For historian Rodrigo Goyena Soares, Brazil is experiencing its worst moment in foreign relations since José Bonifácio. In addition to breaking with a secular tradition of multilateralism, Bolsonar diplomacy, he says, opts for an alignment motivated by particular and ideological reasons.
Historian Thiago Krause agrees and says that it is possible to notice echoes of Dom Pedro 1º’s stance in Bolsonaro, such as authoritarian impulses and excessive concern with the family issue.
“We could catch more brutal moments in foreign policy, such as support for the Pinochet dictatorship, Operation Condor, or the end of the Paraguayan War, but in terms of Brazil’s status in the world, I find it very difficult to think of a moment when the country be more outcast than now.”
Ricupero agrees. “The period of Ernesto Araújo is the worst of the worst. It is when Brazil destroys all the soft power heritage it had accumulated”, he says.
In Krause’s view, the main challenges facing Brazilian foreign policy today include building a credible environmental policy to reposition Brazil in the climate debate and rebuilding ties with Latin America and the Global South.
