Saturday, November 7, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
BRAZIL-US: Key Accords on Education, Environment, Technology
Mario Osava
- Washington is not seeking to divide the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) as widely rumoured, U.S. President Bill Clinton said Tuesday in Brazil.
At a joint press conference offered by Clinton and his Brazilian counterpart Fernando Henrique Cardoso to reporters from both countries, Clinton called pitting the idea of a future Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) against Mercosur “a false choice.”
“We want both,” he said, pointing to subregional blocs as factors that promote trade and hence “stability and security.”
Clinton – on a weeklong tour of South America which has taken him to Venezuela and will continue on to Argentina – said he believed that an opening of trade generated jobs and provided benefits to everyone.
But trade issues are being downplayed on Clinton’s visit to Brazil. The key agreement initialled by the two presidents was a Memorandum of Understanding on Education – which could become the “embryo of the policy to be adopted throughout the continent” in the framework of the FTAA, according to Cardoso.
The accord encompasses areas ranging from the application of new technologies to student exchange programmes and evaluation and training of teachers, while encouraging the participation of the private sector in education.
Cardoso stressed that the FTAA “has no meaning if it is limited to tariffs” and fails to boost equality and bring “real improvement in people’s lives.”
The accord on education demonstrates that integration involves social aspects and not only trade, he added.
While insisting that the FTAA should not be built “at the expense of Mercosur,” the Brazilian president told the reporters that he and Clinton had discussed the commercial disputes between the two countries.
According to the president of the Association of Exporters, Marcus Pratini de Moraes, Brazil’s “most competitive” products – including steel, orange juice, gasoline, sugar, tobacco and fruit – face barriers in the United States. Furthermore, Brazil wants progress towards an FTAA to be as slow as possible, while the United States is keen on a fast slashing of tariffs throughout the region.
But the presidents swept aside such issues at the press conference, promising to urge government experts to resolve the conflicts as soon as possible to keep them from affecting the broader interests of bilateral and continental relations.
Brazilian and U.S. ministers, meanwhile, signed cooperation accords in areas such as the environment and state-of-the-art technologies.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright signed accords on justice, the peaceful use of nuclear energy and technology for clean energy.
An agreement signed by the heads of the Brazilian Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ensures Brazil’s participation in the U.S. space station project.
Cooperation and transfer of technology from the United States to Brazil were previously restricted in those areas, because they involved know-how that could also be used to develop advanced weapons.
The areas included in the agreements, especially those referring to nuclear energy and space development, “were until recently motives of conflict” rather than collaboration, said Brazil’s Secretary of Strategic Affairs, Ronaldo Sardenberg.
But the democratisation of Brazil and its decision to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as other initiatives ensuring the peaceful use of technology, paved the way towards the elimination of such restrictions, analysts point out.
The possibilities of cooperation between the two countries have never been so abundant since the end of World War II, underlined Cardoso, who proclaimed the start of a “new phase.”
Clinton also underlined the need for environmentally-friendly energy technology. His government earmarked 10 million additional dollars for the preservation of Amazon jungles in Brazil, as part of a programme supported by the Group of Seven (G-7), which links the world’s richest countries.
The pact will focus on the protection of wetlands and tropical forests in both the United States and Brazil. The “urgent need for joint efforts” is accentuated today by the intensification of the El Nino weather phenomenon which is rattling climatic conditions around the globe and the fires raging in Brazil’s forests, said Clinton.
He emphasised the crucial importance of climatic change, promising to contribute to solutions at December’s meeting in Kyoto, Japan, which is to establish goals for the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases.
But he insisted that “development must not be sacrificed,” and that “developing countries will also have to assume commitments.”
He referred to alternative sources of energy, arguing that developing countries should seek energy options different from those predominating in industrialised countries.
Clinton responded to criticism that U.S. emissions have increased, pointing out that the country’s economic growth had outstripped Europe’s since 1990. He cited the example of Great Britain, which was able to replace coal and oil – which it exports and with which it pollutes other countries – with cleaner natural gas at home.
But aside from the numerous accords signed in Brazil, Clinton’s tour has also been marked by what analysts described as a mild resurgence of anti-imperialist sentiment in both Venezuela, his first stop on Sunday, and Brazil, where he arrived Monday.
While banners in Venezuela read “Yankees, Go Home!”, several high level officials refused to participate in the ceremonies welcoming Clinton to Brazil.
Political analysts, however, said the sense of national pride hurt by several incidents with the U.S. team did not reflect proposals for independent development as in the past, nor rejection of the presence of foreign capital in the Brazilian economy.
Nevertheless, diplomatic reactions have varied. The governor of Brasilia, Cristovam Buarque, said he refused to be “submitted to inspection by foreigners,” referring to the metal detectors brought by Clinton’s security team.
He preferred not to attend the official ceremony welcoming Clinton so the population of the Brazilian capital would not suffer the “humiliation” of seeing their governor searched by the “visible or invisible hands” of foreign agents or machines that mistrust the security offered by the host country.
The president of the Supreme Court, Celso de Mello, meanwhile, refused to participate in the dinner offered by Cardoso in Clinton’s honour Monday.
His decision came in response to a report distributed by Washington which criticised Brazil’s judiciary. “My reaction is institutional, not personal,” said the magistrate, who added that no nation had the right to issue opinions on the institutions of other countries.
The U.S. Embassy only removed the term “endemic,” with which the report had referred to corruption in Brazil, but did not retract its negative statements with respect to the country’s judicial and educational systems.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Clinton, however, called the report drawn up by mid-level administration officials “an incredible error.”
The president of the National Congress, Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes, threatened to suspend the ceremony in the legislature if Clinton’s security team insisted on limiting the number of parliamentarians and reporters allowed to attend.
The measures taken by the president’s advance security team also caused irritation in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. After some resistance, local authorities allowed U.S. security agents to bring in exclusive military weapons like machine guns and high- powered rifles, to be used during a visit to a Rio de Janeiro ‘favela’ (shantytown).
But political columnist and former legislator Marcio Moreira Alves wrote this week in the newspaper ‘O Globo’ that the Washington report contained no false claims, and that the Brazilian government itself recognised the slow pace of justice and the poor quality of teaching, while Congress had approved impunity for parliamentarians accused of corruption.
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