American diplomat Arturo Valenzuela says he is optimistic about the future of democracy in Brazil, despite the current difficulties, and believes that any attempt at rupture will be taken very seriously, both by Brazilians and by countries such as the United States —by rupture, I understand- a refusal by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to accept an eventual defeat at the polls.
“There needs to be a constant effort to strengthen institutions. There is a certain fragmentation of political forces in the world, there is a lack of cohesion, but I am confident that we will see forces coming together — and this will be the case in Brazil as well”, he evaluates.
Valenzuela, 78, was the State Department’s top name for Latin America at the start of the Obama administration and helped campaign for current President Joe Biden. Today, he is professor emeritus at Georgetown University.
The former secretary participates this Wednesday (13), at 6 pm, in a virtual debate on relations between the USA and Brazil at Cebri (Brazilian Center for International Relations). The center is launching a project of debates and studies on the relationship between Brazil and the United States, under the coordination of Sérgio Amaral, former ambassador to Washington.
How do you assess the current relationship between Brazil and the US, especially in light of the distance between Biden and Bolsonaro? The relationship is very deep. We need to make a distinction between what the US-Brazil relationship is on a wide range of issues and the differences that may exist between the two heads of state at this particular time.
The relationship has been very strong in recent times: it involves trade, investment, technology, climate change, education. In the long term, there will continue to be a strong relationship, the two countries have a lot at stake. The fact that Brazil buys fertilizers from Russia does not compare with the extraordinary investments that the US private sector has in Brazil in a wide variety of areas.
I hope we can get back to an agenda where we talk about common interests in terms of education, social inclusion, trade, investment, human rights and democracy. The most important thing now is peace and security.
The issue is not whether Brazil is just pulling away from the US, but the country is clearly pulling away significantly from its traditional allies in Europe. These are difficult times, not something I have ever experienced. It is catastrophic what is happening in Ukraine today. We can’t let this sort of thing go on, it’s not a time to be wrong.
Should the US move closer to Brazil and Latin America in seeking an international consensus against Russia? The US is not going to say something like “ok, we disagree with you, and we’ll try to make adjustments.” We’re facing a critical moment where you can’t use an argument like “well, look, we need to protect fertilizer imports.” This includes what has been happening at the UN, where the vast majority of countries have decided that Russia needs to be suspended from the Human Rights Council.
One of the concerns in the world today is the advancement of authoritarian and populist leaders, from the left or the right. It is very revealing that the two largest countries in Latin America, Mexico and Brazil, abstained in the vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Both have populist leaders, one on the right and the other on the left.
Refraining from this kind of question is something that will require a lot of repairs later. It is up to the Brazilian people to decide exactly what their leadership should look like in the future, just as the US decided that the previous government was one that could no longer be accepted.
How can the US and Brazil align themselves more on peace and security issues? There were times when the US, during the Cold War, created relations with Latin American countries that configured efforts to ward off what was seen as a communist threat — one of the first coups d’état that actually took place was in Brazil. But with the end of the Cold War, a new era of solidification of democratic institutions began. I know Brazil well enough to know that most people support this.
We need to make it clear that this is not about the US setting an example for the world. The US has shown to have some significant problems with democracy itself, and that requires change and reform. Brazil will face the same kind of thing. So I hope that we are able to get back to a point where, together with Europeans and Latin America, we can put the focus on trying to rebuild institutions, so that we have a more peaceful world.
Jair Bolsonaro has already signaled that he may not accept the result of the 2022 elections. How would you assess that the US will react in this case? I think that not only the US, but countries around the world that are concerned about issues like this will take this very seriously, as will many Brazilians.
It is a mistake to think that there is a process that leads from underdevelopment to perfectly developed institutions. There needs to be a constant effort to strengthen and renew institutions. There is a certain fragmentation of political forces in the world, there is a lack of cohesion, but I am confident that we will see forces coming together. And I certainly hope that will be the case for Brazil too
I’m optimistic. I worked in Brazil as an academic researcher for many years. I was invited to go to Brazil when democracy was re-established, to discuss how to strengthen institutions. I am very confident that this difficult time will be overcome, but it will not be easy. We see a fragmentation of institutions and a lack of strong and cohesive parties.
Brazil and the US face high inflation. Could the two countries help each other on the issue? The fundamental problem is that supply chains have been disrupted, in part because of insecurities in the world—there is the great irony that inflation is now a product of the breakdown of oil products chains. Biden has mentioned several times that we need to move beyond dependence on them.
We have to tackle these twin issues, climate change and energy supply. It won’t be done overnight, but the foundations are in place.
Do you see room for more economic partnerships? They are two great countries seeking to strengthen their economic ties. There is always talk about whether or not to have a free trade agreement in the Americas, and Brazil stood outside of it. And Mercosur is no longer what it used to be. The US has important relationships with countries in the Western Hemisphere, and everyone would benefit from that. It’s not a question of being the backyard of Brazil or the US, that kind of mentality is not what we need in the 21st century.
How do you assess the way Biden has acted in relation to Venezuela? Every government faces a wide range of challenges around the world and cannot solve every problem. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns about a situation like Venezuela’s.
What did this government notice, and what had not been noticed by the previous one? [de Donald Trump] is that it’s not a question of doing something like encouraging a military coup and that would settle the issue. Some of the previous administration’s mistakes made it more difficult to support the opposition in Venezuela, which is divided. Venezuela is essentially a failed economy, a failed state, which is going to require a lot of work. We haven’t seen such a massive collapse of a country in Latin America, perhaps since the case of Paraguay after the war with the Triple Alliance in the 19th century. But that doesn’t mean there is negligence, just that the policies adopted before were incorrect.
Could Brazil work with the US on the issue? There is significant national interest for Brazil and the US in the matter. When I was Assistant Secretary [de Estado]I had a very good relationship with the defense ministers [do Brasil]. They were trying to see if the situation in Venezuela could be resolved and if there was a risk of a potential conflict between Venezuela and Colombia. There was also concern about the migration crisis.
How do you assess the way Biden has dealt with the issue of immigration? There has been a lot of damage to area policies in the past, and it is difficult to readjust them. There is a crisis because many people want to leave their countries. We are seeing a European country being bombed into submission, where the targets are not the Armed Forces, but the people. There are countries with significant criminal organizations, drug trafficking, economic regression issues.
The US is a nation of immigrants and we must continue to be, with open doors. The Biden administration is committed to that, but you can’t go from one thing to another that fast, these policies take a long time to implement.
x-ray | Arturo Valenzuela, 78
Emeritus professor at Georgetown University, with a degree in political science and religion from Drew University and a master’s and doctoral degree in political science from Columbia University, he was US Assistant Secretary of State under the Barack Obama administration (2009-2011).
