Against the backdrop of rising regional anti-Americanism, and in the context of deep Covid-triggered recession throughout Ibero-America in which China is playing a key mitigating role, it’s clear that the Aug. 5-6 trip to Brazil and Argentina by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had only one geopolitical purpose: bash China, while offering the “benefits” of embracing the green climate boondoggle and supporting U.S. economic and strategic foreign policy objectives in the region. Argentine President Alberto Fernández’s relationship with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador and their joint regional coordination and criticism of U.S. policy—on Cuba, Venezuela, sanctions, and the negative role of the Organization of American States—are problems for the Biden administration. Argentina is now also vying to replace Mexico as the next president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) for 2022, and some regional leaders suggest that CELAC could become a replacement for the U.S.-controlled OAS.
But, since Argentina is also anxious to get Biden’s support for its negotiations with the IMF for a new standby agreement, this is a vulnerability, and the Argentine President is said to be lobbying hard to get a visit to the White House as soon as possible, maybe as early as September. Finance Minister Martin Guzman was included in Fernández’s Aug. 6 meeting with Sullivan, along with the NSC’s Western Hemisphere specialist Juan Gonzalez, during which there was extensive discussion on the issue of debt. U.S. National Technology and Security Director Tarun Chhabra was also involved, almost certainly to warn of the dangers of allowing Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s participation in building Argentina’s 5G networks.
Sullivan’s phrases about cooperation and fighting Covid, (even with the recent arrival of 3.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine donated by the U.S.), didn’t hide the reality that the U.S. really has only its neoliberal, depopulation and green schemes to offer. In Argentina, according to Sputnik and other media, Sullivan and his entourage continued to hit on the danger of possible Chinese investment in the southernmost and strategically very important port city of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, because of its proximity to Antarctica, and in other Chinese investment projects in the country. But in Brazil, Sullivan went further, offering in a meeting with Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, that the U.S. would help Brazil become a “global partner” of NATO, and get membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in exchange for Brazil’s excluding Huawei from 5G bidding, planned for later this year, Folha de São Paulo reported Aug. 5. This was followed by the threat that should Huawei not be excluded, then Brazil would lose the opportunity to “deepen its defense and security cooperation with the U.S.”
The Brazilian military is reportedly divided about what such a partnership with NATO would entail and what benefits it might bring—if any. Celso Amorim, the nationalist Workers’ Party (PT) leader who served as Foreign Minister in the Lula da Silva presidency (2003-2010) and Defense Minister in Dilma Rousseff’s presidency (2010-2014), said in an Aug. 8 statement to PT-TV that “becoming an associate of NATO doesn’t interest Brazil.” As for the OECD, “it’s a rich countries’ club, with rules for the rich who trade among themselves.” The U.S. is obsessed with China and with 5G, he said. Were Brazil to accept the NATO partnership, he went on, this would no doubt greatly benefit the U.S. “but could hurt Brazil…. The U.S. proposes two things that don’t interest our country in exchange for something [5G] that is very serious, as it has to do with our technological development. Brazil should be free to choose that with which it is compatible, and the best option may be the Chinese one.”
