Oppenheimer says that Mexico feels like Brazil is excluding it from the region and Argentina feels like it's playing second fiddle to Brazil in the South American Community.
Brazil has been pushing for more regional and global power for years and that push is accelerating. Brazil can make that push because it is spending the political capital to do so. President Lula da Silva is making the rounds, trying to serve as a moderating force against the radical left and the Bush administration in the region. He's providing a strong voice for developing countries on the international level. Brazil stepped up to the plate with Haiti and offered over 1,000 troops. Rightly or wrongly, they're taking a lead in fighting subsidies from the developed world and patent rights on AIDS drugs. Recently they rejected US money to fight AIDS out of a dispute with US policies.
Mexico and Argentina can sit there and complain, or they can put their chips on the table. Both countries have resources and diplomatic clout that they can tap. Argentina has done very little recently to deserve more international clout while Mexico has done some of what they need to do (Puebla-Panama development project, working to mediate between the Colombian government and ELN). Both countries need to realize that Brazil is using soft and hard power to play realist politics and if they want to share in Brazil's gains, they have to do likewise.
Oppenheimer seems to think that Brazil's push could lead to regional tensions. Maybe, but it's also possible some good natured competition for international power might be a good thing for the whole region. It's about time that Brazil, Argentina, Mexico (and I'll add Chile) take some leadership roles in their region. If others don't like how Brazil is acting, they should stop capitulating to Brazil, step up and offer their own solution. I'd have loved to seen three or four competing resolutions offered at the OAS trying to fix some of the recent anti-democratic moves in Belize, Ecuador, Nicaragua or Venezuela. It would have been great to see several countries in the region speaking out with different voices. That would have been a debate worth having and it would have been more effective than simply criticizing the US for not taking a leadership role or Brazil for hogging it.
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Mexico and Argentina can sit there and complain, or they can put their chips on the table. Both countries have resources and diplomatic clout that they can tap. Argentina has done very little recently to deserve more international clout while Mexico has done some of what they need to do (Puebla-Panama development project, working to mediate between the Colombian government and ELN). Both countries need to realize that Brazil is using soft and hard power to play realist politics and if they want to share in Brazil's gains, they have to do likewise.
One of the things that Brazil has done that I am most happy about is the WTO win on the cotton subsidies. They did it not just for themselves, but also for countries like Burkina Faso and Mali who could not have afforded the legal costs of pursuing these claims.
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