New York Times
March 27, 2001
By Larry Rohter

BRASÍLIA -- First came a bitter trade dispute with Canada in which President Fernando Henrique Cardoso threatened, "If they want war, then war is war." Now Brazil's leaders are standing firm on another trade-related foreign policy issue, this time with the United States.

The dispute with Washington has to do with patents on AIDS drugs. The one with Canada is over subsidies to aircraft makers and over mad cow disease.

What they have in common is the sight of Brazil as it sheds its image as eternally easygoing and cordial and suddenly flexes the muscles that naturally accrue to a regional power with 170 million people and a booming economy.

"We're probably going to be seeing more of this assertiveness during the last 18 months of the Cardoso administration," said Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

"The Brazilian government," he said, "feels that Brazil is entitled to much greater international recognition and more of a leadership role" because of the country's growing economic importance.

In the dispute on AIDS drugs, the United States has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization. It argues that a law here that would force foreign companies to provide their anti-AIDS drugs at lower prices, or license Brazilian companies to do so in the event of a health emergency, violates international trade rules. But Brazil shows no sign of backing down.

"We will defend our case," Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Lafer said in an interview. "I think we are helped" not only by legal arguments based on Brazilian patent and intellectual property law but also by "what we believe is the moral dimension of our case."

Indeed, Brazil runs a highly successful program to fight AIDS, in part because it is able to provide drugs at prices below those charged by major pharmaceutical companies. The United Nations singled out the program for praise in early March. Many private groups have supported Brazil's stand, as have countries like South Africa and India, which have made similar challenges.

In recent years, Brazil has been equally determined to defend Embraer, which builds commuter jets and military planes, against its main rival, Bombardier, the Canadian company. A new front in that conflict emerged in February when Canada suddenly announced a prohibition on imports of Brazilian beef, supposedly because of fears of mad cow disease.

Brazilian officials argued that the beef ban was just an excuse to intimidate them in the aircraft dispute and gave Canada until March 1 to rescind the ban.

When the Canadians finally gave Brazilian meat a clean bill of health on Feb. 27, the Cardoso administration was able to treat the event as a triumph and announced plans to file complaints of its own against Canada at the World Trade Organization.

"This was a win-win situation for Cardoso, in that he got the attention of the Canadians and will probably get more attention at the upcoming summit than he would have otherwise," said Kenneth Maxwell, director of the Brazil project at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders in April in Quebec.

The agenda for that meeting focuses on liberalizing trade, in particular on an American proposal to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas as rapidly as possible, perhaps as early as 2003.

Brazil argues that a deadline of 2005 is more "adequate and appropriate," as Mr. Lafer put it, because of the complex issues involved. Brazil was almost alone in advocating a slower approach at first. But that position has now been endorsed by small Caribbean nations and by Ecuador, which becomes chairman of the trade talks in April.

"It's not so important when, but rather how we are going to have this common market," Ecuador's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, said in Washington recently. "Are we really talking seriously about free trade? Is free trade a two-way road between North and South?"

At the same time, though, Brazil is even looking to play a role beyond the hemisphere. It sees itself as the natural Latin American candidate for a seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council, a cause that it has advocated.

Adopting terminology used by George F. Kennan, the American foreign policy theorist, Mr. Lafer said Brazil belonged to a group of "monster countries" like Russia, China and India that because of their continental size have an inherent weight in international affairs.

But Brazil is inherently more pacific than other such countries, Mr. Lafer argued, because it "has not been present at the core of conflicts in the international system."