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News and Information
The South American Summit:
A new era for Brazilian foreign policy
by Ze lia Roelofse-Campbell
Head, Unisa Centre for Latin American Studies
For the first time in history, all the presidents of South
America met at a summit, called by Brazil's President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The summit took place
on 31st August and 1st September in BrasõÂ lia.
The 12 countries 1 represent a population of 337
million people and total GDP of US$ 1,5 trillion and are
currently grouped into two main free trade blocs, namely
Mercosul and the Andean Community of Nations
(CAN). Mercosul comprises Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay
and Uruguay, with Bolivia and Chile as associate
members. The countries of the Andean Community of
Nations are: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and
Venezuela. English-speaking Guyana and Dutch-speaking
Suriname were also included at the summit, as they
form an integral part of South America 2 .
The summit was universally regarded as marking a
new phase in Brazilian foreign policy. For example,
The New York Times headlined an article on the
summit `Brazil Begins to Take Role on the World
Stage' (Rohter 2000), while Correio Braziliense
described it as `an historic landmark' (um marco
histoÂrico) (GarcõÂ a 2000).
Writing before the summit, President Cardoso described
it as a `reaffirmation of South America's
identity as a region where democracy and peace
advance the prospects for an increasingly energetic
process of integration among countries that live
together in the same neighbourhood' (Cardoso 2000).
The timing of the summit was explained by the
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States in an
address at the National Press Club in Washington DC:
We think that after NAFTA was signed in 1994, a
new economic geography began to take shape in
the hemisphere with very clear cut differentiations:
NAFTA, North America, with three countries; then
Central America with the Central American Common
Market; CARICOM, with the countries of the
Caribbean forming this political and economic
entity; and South America, the fourth area. In
South America we have two regional groupings,
the Mercosur, from 1990, and the Andean Pact
from 1969. This is, in economic terms, financial
terms, from companies' point of view, what is really
happening in the hemisphere ... South America as a
unit, as a group of countries, is sort of left over, and
now we decided to do something about that ... Our
shared geography, history, values point out to a
unit, an integrated part of the world ... This is
beginning, as Brazil sees it, to create a new identity
of the region with a common agenda, and with
geo-economic concerns ± not geopolitical concerns
± ... because the motivation of all this is
mainly the economy, trade, finance, but not
exclusively, because there are political considerations
as well ... (Barbosa 2000). (See table 1.)
The main topics of the agenda were: strengthening
of democracy; expansion of trade; development of
integration infrastructure; combating illicit drugs and
related crimes; information, science and technology.
The particular objectives of Brazil were to strengthen
the links among the countries of South America,
improve the utilization of regional energy, communications,
transport and trade resources, and strengthen
regional integration by ensuring support for this at
62 ISSN 0256±6060±Unisa Lat. Am. Rep. 16(2) 2000