Imagine if, in 2022, the Chilean President had come to Brazil to participate in the September 7th celebrations, organized by Jair Bolsonaro for the purpose of mobilizing his supporters against democracy and the institutions they guarantee it. The visitor could argue that his presence would be justified by the valuable cooperation agreements between the two countries, to be signed on the visit.
It turns out that, elected by a coalition of the democratic left, it would be difficult to explain what he did in the midst of the far right willing to degrade the usual celebrations of the Brazilian national date in a scammer pre-carnival.
President Boric did not come to Brazil on September 7, but the president went to Moscow to honor the staging that the Autocrat was used to pervert the celebration of the historic Nazi Germany defeat by the Allies in 1945 – to which the Soviet Union contributed 27 million, among civilians and military -, in display of its vast power and legitimation of its expansions.
Presidential diplomacy, when well-made, strengthens the external action of a country, adding the weight of authority and the prestige that the figure of the first agent arises. It acts as a lens of increasing action, by definition, the more discreet and continuous of professional diplomats, the more effective the more able to demonstrate objectives coherence and proper choice of means to achieve them.
For a combination of choice and necessity, Brazilian foreign policy traditionally bet on peaceful solutions for international conflicts and the action conceived in organizations and multilateral arrangements. The option for multilateralism was a universalist orientation in the search for partners for commerce and other forms of cooperation. The country has always been willing to transact with the whole world and to relate to all nations, whatever their regimes were.
With the 1988 Constitution, the defense of democracy and respect for human rights came to lust the guiding principles of the country’s external action. No by chance, even less at a whim, but for the presumed conviction that the regime of freedoms would be better guaranteed within our borders if it also predominated beyond them.
In any case, over these almost four decades, the exercise of Brazilian foreign policy anchored in universalism and respect for others’ sovereignty has not always been in tune with democratic commitment. Perhaps it is comforted that this real tension marks not only the Brazilian outer action but that of other Western nations.
Relationships with dictatorial regimes – as those of, Venezuela and China, among many others less relevant to us -, as well as with countries that dancing to pursue the same way, such as Trump’s US, put steep challenges to the country. They require pragmatism, subtlety and much sharpness as to what you want to achieve. They dispense with disoriented and embarrassing presidential diplomacy to autocrats of all languages.
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