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support for the military coup. 475 From 1967, however, under Arthur da Costa eSilva, a return was made to ‘independent foreign policy’, although the term was onlyused again in 1970 by Emílio Médici. During this period, Brazil adopted a moreassertive position in international affairs. Among others, it adopted a stance againstindustrialised nations on pollution at the 1972 UN Conference on the HumanEnvironment; refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and, concludeda nuclear deal with West Germany in 1975. With impressive economic growth in theearly 1970s, Brazil was able to establish its incipient foreign aid programme, therebyadding financial resources to its global outreach begun so tentatively underKubitschek in the 1950s and Quadros and Goulart in the early 1960s. 476Assessing Brazil’s foreign policy posture over time, therefore, there are two keyobservations that can be made about the country’s foreign policies with respect tothe developing world. First, the ‘social’ dimension evident in Lula’s foreign policy isnot new to Brazil’s foreign policy tradition. There has long been a focus oneconomic development, and, moreover, viewing underdevelopment as a function ofdisadvantageous global economic structures. What has changed from oneadministration to the next is the perception of the extent of the required reform.Second, solidarity with the South appears to be more of an elite interest (limitedsections of the elite) than an organic national concern in Brazil. For much of thetwentieth century, Brazil’s interests did not coincide neatly with those of thedeveloping world, with the result that Brazilian policymakers were utilising the ideaof Southern solidarity for purposes of launching commercial programmes ofinternational penetration, or, as in the case of trade in agricultural goods, building acore of support in multilateral negotiating forums for wholesale change of tradingpractices that were disadvantageous to its own trade. An example of conflictinginterests was the competition in cocoa and coffee exports, on which the Brazilianeconomy was heavily reliant until the 1960s. 477Southern solidarity was also important, in the Cold War context, in terms ofenacting an independent foreign policy. This policy was initially run ‘cheaply’ based475 National Security Archive. 2004. “Brazil Marks 40 th Anniversary of Military Coup:Declassified Documents Shed Light on US Role”, accessed online at:http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/index.htm on 26 June, 2011.476 Selcher, The Afro-Asian Dimension, 4-35.477 Selcher, The Afro-Asian Dimension, 200.199