Brazil and the FTAA Negotiations

Abstract

Brazil may not have been as radical as Venezuela in its disposition toward the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), but its structural strength in the hemisphere meant that it nonetheless had a determining role in shaping the negotiations and their eventual collapse. At the beginning of the FTAA negotiations in 1994 and during the preparations for the Miami Summit of the Americas, Brazil displayed an attitude of caution toward the negotiations. This caution did not imply a wholesale rejection of the agreement’s underlying neoliberal ideology, nor did it imply a rejection of the FTAA itself; rather, Brazil sought to obtain what it perceived to be the best terms for its economy and to slow down the negotiations in order to ensure that its economy could catch up to North America’s in terms of competitiveness before adhering to a hemispheric free trade agreement (FTA). It was the 1999 exchange crisis that represented a turning point in Brazil’s attitude toward the FTAA, as it prompted a crisis of authority that forced a rearticulation of the national hegemonic bloc based on the integration of economic interests that opposed the potential agreement.