January, 18th at the Inter American Dialogue with Peter Hakim.

 

ES: Peter Hakim, thank you very much for this interview. I have to make a small disclaimer: this is a strictly academic research and I ask for authorization to quote the interview. As I told you before, I will send you back the transcription and you can state if it is ok or not.

 

ES: Peter, I have some personal profile questions, some questions about ideas and another set of questions about D.C.. Could you tell me a little bit about your undergraduate and graduate studies? When? Where? And what subjects? Very shortly.

 

PH:I started my undergraduate at Cornell in Engineering. After six months I knew it was not for me. In part because I could not draw a straight line and engineers had a joy with that. And secondly it was very... portrayed as very commercial. We were constantly told how much we were going to earn. And at that time I had a rather rosé, innocent view of universities as places to learn. So I very quickly switched into Physics and Mathematics and I finished my undergraduate studies in these subjects. Then I went on to graduate school at University of Pennsylvania in Physics and I was there for about a year when I decided that... I was not there quite a year, obviously, but that... maybe I wanted to do something else for a while. I was tired of school. I was not happy with school. I did well. I ended up, though, deciding that I was going to look at International Affairs. I said "maybe I will stay at school but I will switch to...", you know. I had become more engaged at politics at that time, I was involved in the election of Goldwater and Johnson. 1964, this was 1965 now... On behold, when I went to University of Pennsylvania's office there, they... for scholarships were closed there. But there was an advertisement for Princeton University on their bulletin board, a pamphlet. And there they... it was February 15th and we were in February 8th. And Princeton was... I don't know... 50 miles away. So I drove up to Princeton and I talked to them and they thought that my grades were good enough, so they could accept me. And I went to Woodrow Wilson School and got a Masters in Public and International Affairs. And then, just to complete the story, I was all set... It was in the middle of the Vietnam War... to continue to a Doctorate. In fact, it was all set for me to go to MIT in Political Science. When I was looking for summer jobs, I happened to stumble over the floor of the Ford Foundation, literally, and I asked about a summer job and was told that they had this year-long jobs for recent graduates and [i was asked] if I would be interested to go overseas. So, It turned out they could find a way that I could postpone any convocation by the military. And so I said "Sure! Give me an application!" and applied. Then I got a call after a long interview [and I was asked] if I would like to go to Brazil. And I said "Yes! I have never been to Brazil before. I have never read anything about Brazil before". I had an inkling that they spoke Portuguese and that it was a big kind [04:53] and that they played soccer and there was the samba. But beyond that I had no knowledge of Latin America or Brazil, or International Affairs, or nuclear issues.

 

ES: And that is why you became... started to become a specialist in Brazil and Latin America?

 

PH: That was it. I was going to spend one year and I actually four years in Brazil with the Ford Foundation.

 

ES: In São Paulo?

 

PH: In Rio. And then I was invited to go to Peru, where I was (sic) for a year. Then I went to Chile, for another four years. And by the time I finished it I had just one specialty that was Latin America. So that was what I pursued. I ended up working for the Inter American Foundation. And then [for] the Inter American Dialogue. I was [05:58] in the same person that hired me for the Ford Foundation hired me for the Inter American Foundation and then hired me for the Dialogue.

 

ES: That is interesting. Who is it?

 

PH: Peter Bell, who died a couple years ago

 

ES: That is fine. And how long have you been working here at the Dialogue?

 

PH: Since 1985.

 

ES: Do you have governmental, academic and private corporations work [experience] throughout all this time?

 

PH: No. Very little. The Inter American Foundation was a government foundation for three years. And then I actually was fired during the Reagan years, as was Peter Bell. Occasionally I have given talks or have done a consultancy, but very, very limited. I did most of the work at the Inter American Dialogue.

 

ES: The time you spent in Brazil is about the time that many of the so-called "Brazilianists" finished their dissertations and thesis on Brazil, like Skidmore, Love, Levine, Fishlow. All these guys, you knew them?

 

PH: Yes, I knew them.

 

ES: They are about your generation.

 

PH: I think I was the youngest of that [generation]. It was a terrific group of people. They really defined US research and scholarship on Brazil for almost my entire life.

 

ES: My undergraduate studies are in History, so I studied them a lot.

 

PH: There was a really superb group of people. Albert Hirschman spent some time there.

 

ES: Do you consider yourself as a conservative, a centrist or a liberal on the US ideological and political specter?

 

PH: Let me put it in another way. I guess I like to think of myself as a centrist, although probably center-left would be closer. I always liked what a colleague of mine once said: "Why is it when we ago to the Chamber of Commerce you sound like Karl Marx and when go to, and you name the liberal, leftist think tank, you sound like Milton Friedman?" I like to think of myself as always being somewhat questioning and asking. I'm probably more conservative on the economic side and more liberal on the social side.

 

ES: How do you get your sources to write about Brazil?

 

PH: What do you mean by "my sources"?

 

ES: When you do your research, when you write your papers, what kind of literature, or data do you use? You call people, you see...?

 

PH: It has evolved over the years. For a long time, It was largely calling people, reading books, trying to stay on top of when an article emerged, the newspapers and all, trying to keep track of. It was very difficult. It was a half a dozen people I could call. The Brazilian Embassy etc. I tried to, when I could, reach some Brazilian newspapers. And, though I would guess in the past fifteen years or so as the internet became more sophisticated, there is Google Alert to all these resources, articles... El Pais in Spain, [11:08]. And then, of course, the Brazilian newspapers...

 

ES: Which ones do you read the most?

 

PS: I tend to be... perhaps because I knew so many people, the Estado de São Paulo and Folha [de São Paulo]. Those are the two... And who is very important, David Fleischman put this weekly report on Brazil that I find very useful in part because it gives me a quick read and plus it cites all kinds of articles that if I want to pursue, X or Y, or puzzled by something. It comes every week and makes me a little lazy sometimes of pursing other things, but I do get Google Alerts and a variety of things that just come in over. And I find that the US newspapers are actually... I don't know when they begin to do... the coverage of Brazil was not so bad, in another words, [12:34] and the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal has a very good... [12:43] does a lot of work on Brazil. And the Post, [12:51] of Brazil. But actually the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. And then the Los Angeles Times pops up with an article occasionally. And, like I say, there is all these services that keeps sending me things. So I find myself reading the same thing often too many times. What is missing... it is harder to find literature, whether it is the journals Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Chatham House Journal, Brazil's Politica Externa, Spain's Politica Exterior. Only people... I often don't find articles as easily as I should. Somehow we have gotten so used to the daily that the largest stuff gets pushed aside.

 

ES: Most academic reviews are not usually...

 

PS: Academic reviews are once in a while... you know, a book comes out... or I read Foreign Affairs, book reviews. But it is very hard... the academic literature is just not... a few universities I get emails from and I read what I have to say. But to be honest, I just once in a blue moon, when I see a reference in the other things I am looking at. My guess is, and I may be wrong on this, I'm surely [15:03] deal with Brazil, but you told them about Brazilian scholars... But there is not a whole lot of people writing about Brazil now. I don't see the stuff. You pick up the Foreign Affairs and there is one article on Brazil. The latest was on Michael Reid, he writes the book on Brazil. And then the other writers of the books on Brazil have all been New York Times reporters. So Alberth Fishlow, [15:48]... those I get because I know them and they will send me copies. But I haven't seen anything really, maybe I'm missing something, there hasn't been anything strong... there are a couple of books on Foreign Policy. There was one that came out and I liked very much or that I used very much. I can't remember the name or the author. It was a young... It was about foreign policy and I can't remember...

 

ES: We have finished this first part. The second is about...

 

PH: Did you see this article of mine, by the way? The future of US-Brazil relation?

 

ES: Yes.

 

ES: Do you think that Brazil is more a Latin American country, a BRICS country or a global one?

 

PH: Certainly more a Latin American country. I don't think there is any questions there. I don't know what a BRIC country is... It has a connection with China and it's pretty big. I think that the choice of the BRIC countries was sort of random. It could have been Indonesia thrown in. It could have been Mexico perhaps. But that wasn’t a bad choice. I think that of the countries Brazil was the one in the original four that was sort of the least obvious. Although Russia... What is Russia after the [18:12] of the emerging market. Russia was a superpower ten years before and all of a sudden is one of the key emerging markets. Basically China and India were obvious with a billion population and growing a 10%, 12% a year. Brazil was the biggest thing beyond those two, I think it is now... Indonesia... After that just size was enough in some ways. But I don't think there is anything that identifies the BRICs. I don't think they find an easy common ground, except they are all regional powers looking to be... to have an influence internationally. There is something in their aspirations, but they don't have any... Brazil trades with China. If you look at the other three BRICS there is almost no commerce. And that is the same with almost every one of the countries there. China is the hub and they are all spokes. And then they globally... Brazil sort of moved from being at the outside looking in to suddenly being invited to all the big tables. And in the end it is clear what will make Brazil or any other country of some global importance is two things: one is the quality, the size, the growth of its economy, a solid economy where the business world wants to be involved in, where they want to invest in, countries they want to trade with, a big economy; and secondly it's somewhere near the world's areas of great danger, hotspots. In another words, India and Pakistan are probably more relevant to US interest then Brazil. Not because of any other... they are in a nasty place of the world. Turkey is more important than Brazil because Turkey right on the frontier there. So I think that Brazil's only global aspect, well you could put two things: one is the economics, its economic weight, so to speak; secondly is its interest, capacity, engagement with some of the global issues more than others. Whether it is climate change, how the IMF should be organized, the interest on the UN Security Council. Those issues are sort a common that any of the merging countries really spend a lot of time on them. Although I must admit that at times when we get the feeling that Brazil does not prepares itself well enough in some of the issues that... you know, thinks about them, know that they are important, shows up at the meetings, generally has a point of view. But sometime it really falls short. And they have been more successful at, I think, blocking things they don't like than getting their issues moving forward.

 

ES: And what is the cause of that? What do you think?

 

PH: I'm not sure exactly. I think, first, presumably if they were more aligned with the US they would be more successful, but that's because the US is a good ally to have. And US get its way a lot. Opposing the US, what Brazil does often on small and larger issues, is a way to...[that] tends to lose. Because when the US says "I'm not interested anymore" then you don't have some movement. And so it has happened on trade issues, whether with the FTAA, with the Doha Rounds etc. When Brazil sort of got its way nothing moved forward. They have not found the way. That is interesting, I haven't thought of this quietly. But to negotiate with the United States, to find agreement and then move forward rather then... I think that Brazil would have been more successful at Doha, climate change or a number of... If it started the negotiation and found if there is any flexibility with the United States rather than come after [24:26]. And then I have heard, I must admit I won't tell you from where, that there was at one point a meeting of the countries that saw themselves as candidates for seats at the Security Council... this may have been eight, ten, twelve years ago... Germany, Japan, Brazil, India. And I was told by a couple of diplomats that Brazil was the least well prepared. This was another reason that made me begin, that was what triggered my thinking of their role internationally.

 

ES: [Least] Well prepared because it lacks military power or...?

 

PH: No, [not] well prepared with the knowledge, the basis of how the UN is organized, its history, where the votes have to come from, what are the five or six issues that have to be... in another words, sort of be the well briefed.  It struck me. That's why I started looking at Brazil's foreign policy and relationship with the US. And occasionally, I get this from people in the State Department "Brazil is just not well prepared to talk about this"'. And I'm surprised because Brazil, basically, among the Latin American countries is far better prepared than any.

 

ES: They were talking about their counterparts, the Brazilian diplomacy, probably?

 

PH: That I don't know. I mean, they were just saying...

 

ES: Or the civil society...

 

PH: No, no, the diplomacy.

 

ES: Before the ongoing crisis in the last few years, many people were talking about Brazil as a rising country. Is the Brazilian rise an opportunity to the United States? Why?

 

PH: I think the best recent example of that was Obama's trip to Brazil in 2010, before the Iran [case], where he went with fifty American CEOs. These are really rock stars in the countries, the CEOs of GE (General Electrics), Goldman Sachs. He went with his whole economic cabinet. The definition of the purpose of the trip was, when he was asked in several interviews, "This is a job's program for the United States". All about business... I think that is really... has to be the core of the Brazil-US relation, given the differences between Brazil and the US on global issues. US is not an easy country to make accommodations with, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's the duty to protect (Responsibility to Protect),or duty while protecting (Responsibility While Protecting). The US is not going to enter into a debate on that, on those issues. It's not going to get into a debate on how to manage Iran. Those are off the table. It's going to be bilateral. At some point it may be worthwhile to bring Brazil in because of its multilateral... but that is something else. But bilaterally, US is not interested in Brazil's views about the world. What it is interested in is developing stronger... There is where the pressure comes from, the US business community. The US business community wants easier access to Brazil. It wants change in government procurement regulations. It wants better patent protection. Whether they are right or wrong, I am not arguing... Boeing desperately wanted to sell the fighter jets to Brazil, and on and on. [30:08] wants to build ports in Brazil, they couldn't compete with Odebrecht. And all that is what US wants from Brazil. And my own view, let me be very direct, is... Mexico sells a half a trillion dollars a year to the United States. Brazil sells 80 billion, about one sixth, maybe one seventh in bad years. And everyone says, when I say that, "Oh! But Mexico is right in the border with the United States. It's obvious". But what about China? China sells half a billion dollars every year to the United States and it is further away from the United States than Brazil. Why? Twenty five years ago China wasn't making anything. So certainly I don't think Brazil is going to in five years sort of approach Mexico or China. But we have at least to recognize that it's a really big market up here. That is huge compared to any other market that Brazil works in. With the possible exception of China. And that it is a mistake to Brazil to forego that market. And I think what is very interesting... just to point out how important the economic side of the relationship could be, the potential... I remember when Lula came to power in 2003 there was a lot of suspicion on the State Department, it was divided on Brazil. It was really the Treasury [Department] that said "You know? Lula is keeping hold on the 4.5% of primary surplus. Don't bother Brazil. They are doing fine." It was really the Treasury [Department] that kept a very good relationship, particularly when Palocci was the Minister. When he left, then... Guido Mantega wasn't not the favorite and things begun... But at that time the US had built a certain confidence in Brazil and Bush and Lula were getting along pretty well. But by and large you had the serious problem that... well, not a problem, the issue of economics is the core. Brazil is not prepared to negotiate with Europe... It has spent twenty years... They still have, despite Dilma's statements, little connection with the Pacific Alliance. Things are going to be... You are going to have all these dialogues... My description, in speeches... The relationship is almost like two foundations rather than two countries. The US wants to send people to Brazil to learn about it and Brazil wants to send people. And they are going to have tourists going... This is not a relationship... serious... diplomatic, security, political, economic relationship. It is going to be in the economic side. I think the visit of Obama to Brazil in 2010 was precisely... And in fact, if you look at Bush's first visit, you again see that economics was the dominant issue, clearly. There was nothing else. And indeed, if you go back to Clinton and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, they could talk about development in Singapore together, about Spanish politics. But that wasn't a national relationship. The big question was how to move Brazil towards more acceptance of ALCA and that didn't occur.

 

ES: Do you see any threats to the United States from Brazil?

 

PH: No.

 

ES: Or challenges? Threat is a strong word.

 

PH: If there is any challenge, it is: number one, and this I have heard the White House say in relatively public meetings, that it is very hard for us to pursue an agenda in South America without Brazil. Without Brazil, its agreement or acceptance, at least its tolerance and they throw out the Colombia base issues. The question if Brazil could have been helpful on maybe even Ecuador. Venezuela... the US can't get anywhere with Venezuela while Brazil presidents... I think Dilma did it as well, but Lula certainly argued that Chavez was the best president. There was just that sense that [it is] very hard to the US to operate in South America without Brazil being at least tolerant. There is a challenge, if you like. The second challenge is [that] Brazil does have carried the India... the Cairns Group, some groups of emerging markets... I think that occasionally US finds that... like the Iran-Turkey issue that could have opened the fragile agreement had with Russia and China over Iran. Those things more than anything. I think most of the... US will move ahead without Brazil. Brazil is not essential except in South America, where essentially Brazil doesn't want to cooperate with the United States.

 

ES: It's a certain capability to block...

 

PH: I don't think that it started with Lula. Fernando Henrique Cardoso was very much aware of the role that... in some ways Brazil needed to be something of a regional star [?39:25], if not a regional power, in order to be taken seriously internationally. And I think that Fernando Henrique Cardoso made a very good speech at the Canadian, some of the Americas, in Quebec city, where he gave all the reasons why Brazil [40:01] move forward. Which is exactly how it came out.

 

ES: And then Lula followed the same steps.

 

PH: Right. I think my sense is that the Brazilian foreign policy has a certain historical flow. It doesn't quite move... Argentina moves in spites [?40:28]... Menen said something like "We want a kind of relationship with the United States'.

 

ES: Carnales...

 

PH: Carnales! And the you have Kirchner who is off with China, Russia, Iran etc. Brazil doesn't... Brazil's waves are much more gradual. As Celso Lafer once putted in a conversation... whether Brazil had changed dramatically under, whether it was from Lula to Dilma, from Fernando Henrique to Lula... He says "This is like... to do foreign policy... It is like riding or surfing a wave. You don't pick the waves. They come and you have to do the best... everyone would just... in a different way." He says "Foreign policy is not like domestic policy. You ride the waves in the style you feel more comfortable with, but it is the waves that are the key." One gets the feeling... Roberto [Abdenur, a former  Brazilian Ambassador to the US] once said that Lula government's foreign policy as an anti-American bias...

 

ES: Never mind. I will check later.

 

PH: He once said... And I remember I was on a panel with him when he said "Roberto, the way you are describing Itamaraty today, which was during the Lula government", he said it had an anti-US bias, "is exactly they ways US State Department official describes Itaramaty everytime I talk to them for the past twenty years.". In another words, there was always the sense that Itamaraty... they used to say it was like the French. That they weren't enemies. They weren't adversaries. They just disagree. And they didn't quite like each other. That was the sense. And Brazil's foreign policy has been rather consistent over the years. It hasn't changed a whole lot.

 

ES: Do you believe we are in a transition to a multipolar international order?

 

PH: I think we have to wait a while to say that. We keep hearing that there is going to be a multilateral for a long time. I think China is probably the best there for seeing it happen. But I remember the books that came out when I was still in college about Japan. It was going to be the Asian axis. And that was one of the reasons the ALCA emerged. And then the European Union was going to take charge. And then, of course, comes along China. Now China has the longest and most successful run [?][47:25] of any country in a long time. It does have a really big bank account now. It does a lot of... muscle. And I think there are certain bipolarities emerging. Even talk about [47:46]. So, yes. I think multipolarity is a little strong. Europe has shown that it can't act like a single country. That it probably won't act like single country. So you have right now two countries that... one is clearly the guy that swings the bat and the other... Could be ten or could be twenty years, but it going to be probably bipolar. Next in line, India looks like a big country, lots of people, but it has had such a difficult history and it is so poor. And I think it is going to be such a hard road for India with so many ethnic, government difficulties... The Chinese have been governing their own country for a lot of years. There is a certain order in China that doesn't exist elsewhere. But I think of China because of both economic and political... being able to manage. Beyond that is hard to see multipolar[ity]... The issue of asymmetry... How does a country like Iran get seemingly so much power... But there are a lot of reasons that make countries dangerous, that make them challenging. But in the end, the big countries, the United States and China... a real boxing world contender. But you don't see a lot of other countries moving up the ladder.

 

ES: Is this shift good for the United States? No longer the front runner, as a unipolar...

 

PH: In so many ways the answer to that question is almost impossible. Sure if the United States really believed in diplomacy, in sharing, in an open world, that would be great for the United States. Everyone would be happier, there would be more prosperity, less money spent on weapons. In the world we live in the US isn't so generous and well meaned. We have different political thinking in this country. The rise of China can produce a backlash here. That we have to defend, that we have to put [51:23] on China. We have to make sure China doesn't get its position nailed down in the South China Sea, that China doesn't get too much influence on Latin America. To sort of see this as a zero-sum, competitive game. Or this is a cooperative game? If this is a cooperative game then we all win. If it's a competitive game then it becomes a little more difficult to tell. Because there is not only the cost of competition but also the backlash of competition in the countries. It is harder to adopt policies that might lead to cooperation once you get... I used to do some work on environmental issues and ecology and at the time that I was told, I've never explored this, that the US, when they talk about ecology, environmental issues, they talk about competition among the species, the survival of the fittest. That there is constant change in competition. When Russian ecologists talk about ecology, they talk about cooperation among the species. That this species is necessary to this species. What looks like cooperation on one is competition on the other. So, I guess, you have an international system that have both elements and it depends on who is competing, on what issues and how rational. And of course we can't depend on rationality to be constant. A Donald Trump could be president of the United States, Putin in Russia. You can begin to see... I think cooperation, if you set the [53:50] but it doesn't always lasts. Look what is going on in Europe now. The antagonisms that are emerging. You see the way politics divides, religion divides. You are going to have both and cooperation is better than competition. I'm not sure a unipolar world is good even when presumably we have a little more... It is sort of interesting. Somehow people thought more relaxed, more able when he had one enemy, the Soviet Union. We were able to agree more here. Now that we have all these mini crisis that are hardly threatening in any existential sense to the United States, we are sort of unable to deal with them. People have written books about it this. I suspect that a certain liberalism in me suggests that what it takes to be multipolar is development, economic growth, prosperity, people will be better of, the world would be better. But who knows?

 

ES: Brazil's foreign policy has some core values like sovereignty, non-intervention, quest for autonomy; whose understanding is often very different from those of the United States. Do you think these differences make the relation with the United States more difficult to flow?

 

PH: I would frame it in a different way, if I can. Those are issues that Brazil thinks are important. The United States think they are important. Look at this court case with Porto Rico. It has the right to have another trial to consult the Supreme Court. I think that these are in the level of generality. There was a very good line in a movie, a debate between two people: a moderate American Jewish man and a radical leftist Jewish man in Israel. And the moderate says something like "I agree with you. It's good to be anti-imperialist. But anti-imperialism is one value among many. It's not the only value. So, if you are an anti-imperialist it doesn't mean you admire greatly North Korea." Sovereignty and democracy, whether it is the protection of democracy, promotion, human rights, are not always aligned with one another. And you can't... If you want to claim sovereignty is the absolute, then if you take to an extreme you are justifying genocide. If you say intervention on some circumstances, who defines the circumstances? I think that to argue about sovereignty, to argue about human rights, to argue about democracy, to argue about social rights in a vacuum is meaningless. You have to sort of come together on the real world and realize there may be some trade-offs. That the social rights may be better defended in this way than another. So I don't think you can be.. I mean I have arguments with people on the left and on the right. I don't want to... with my friends who are human rights advocates. Remember when the Colombian government was trying to end the paramilitaries and they sort of let them off the hook?  They didn't prosecute them. And some of my human rights colleagues would argue "This is just travesty. They are getting away with murder. They have done all these things. They are spending four years in jail, or one year in jails or whatever. And I said "Ok, so say the deal is off and give them back their guns and say go out". You can't quite... I remember the debates over... when Pinochet was arrested in England. Sure, the Chileans tried to defend him, defend the agreement they had made that there would be no prosecutions. Or should the Chileans allow this... these political reasons for doing one and the other etc. All that I'm saying is that I don't think one value is the determinant value. I think you have to make balances. When people are starving in Syria, don't respect the Syrian... Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia... The intervention of the US was right. I think that it was wrong in the case of Panama. Probably the US should have lifted the embargo in Cuba thirty years ago. An argument that says "this is and evil country" so we have to keep punishing it... I t doesn't say anything about what happens to the people on that side. George Kennan had a great statement once, that anything you do to harm a country or harm its people and anything you do to help the people of the country will help the government. So there is no way you can do a humanitarian effort, whether it's in Haiti or Cuba or Syria, without helping the government. There is no way you can harm the government in Iran or North Korea without hurting the people. And you should have to realize that both are going to be going on. And you have to make choices at the margins. Not on absolute terms. And that is the big problem of our debates on the US now. That everyone picks a value... freedom of guns, freedom of religion, freedom... And that becomes the defining light to that argument. Then you go to the next argument and it's a different value that is held up high.

 

ES: Brazil is or has been...

 

PH: Let me just say... I just find Brazil's... Violating sovereignty... Brazil would do more thinking about under what conditions is it acceptable, to sort of say "Venezuela can't do that" or "No, Venezuela hasn't gone too far". But don't just say "sovereignty" without defining what is being lost. And similarly the US can't say intervention is the right without examining what you lose in that process.

 

ES: Brazil is enhancing its military capabilities through several modernizations and development programs, like building a second fleet, a strike submarine, building fighters, sustaining a space program. Some of them with international partners. How does this affects the United States?

 

PH: The most important thing to the United States are two elements: one is they like the business. The US can sell jets to Brazil as many as Brazil buys. That's fine. They are a little bit wary of providing too high tech because they don't quite trust Brazil and that's an issue.

 

ES: Who doesn't trusts? The Defense Department? Congress? Public opinion?

 

PH: I think there is two... When I say trust... Let's assume that I'm more trustworthy than you but I know that you are going to be screaming if... you know... So I want even Brazil to be more trustworthy than I believe... I mean it feeds back. If there is a problem you are watching both sides, you have to watch your own. Some people don't trust Brazil at all. I don't think it's absolutely clear. And I think it's not clear because there is also  trade-offs again. Some people only need 90% assurance and thinking that good relations with Brazil are more important than being absolutely sure that they are not going to misuse that. Others say the value of not misusing is more important than good relations. This is the debate over the Iran nuclear issue. It's just very hard to identify where the problem is. I think probably the people who worry about... I think this is a military issue. I think the States Department is dying to have a stronger relationship. Because I think they defeat their purpose by just keeping Brazil as one of many Latin American countries. There is no expertise on Brazil. Can you find that on the States Department? A group that worries about Brazil? No. "Oh, he spent three years in Mexico. He should go to Brazil now". I think there's some concern about that. I don't think that's a big concern. They don’t think Brazil is suddenly going to gobble up the technology and send it off. I think that by and large we trust Brazil. I think the other real problem is the nuclear side. The US is very concerned about... There is now six nuclear powers... If one or two more come up... The great fear is Iran now.

 

ES: Do you believe there is a fear that Brazil becomes a nuclear power?

 

PH: I think there is less a fear... That's a little complex too. The theories of Brazil, by not joining the Additional Protocol, by having this easy relationship with Iran, is weakening the non-proliferation. Yes, Brazil is right that US and Russia are the main violators, abusers of the agreement. But the question is how to get it stronger. And the US doesn't see any easy way to get the US and Brazil to agree to the kind of demobilization, denuclearization that [01:08:11].But certainly the see it's important not to weaken the restrictions on NU. And I think that's the difference. The problem to the US is not that Brazil is on the verge of, or is planning or has secret facilities... It's only Brazil's attitude: "we only show you two thirds of the..." or "we don't want surprise visitors, inspections... or not there". This weakens the protections. That's the main concern and that, if you like, is a big issue for the United States. And there is somebody that worries about that issue. And that somebody, when they negotiate this things, has a say.

 

ES: So this kind of issue may hamper a close relationship of the defense industry in the United States with the Brazilian government?

 

PH: Yes. No question. Brazil is just not... should be cooperating more in anti-proliferation. And I personally think Brazil should. There is no good reason why Brazil should not be willing to cooperate. Latin America is supposedly nuclear free. So why not strengthen the global [anti] nuclear proliferation? Particularly it could open the way towards more collaboration on getting nuclear technology. And I think that's a negotiation. On the other hand, I think that when somebody is climbing a ladder, in a business, metaphorically climbing a ladder to get to a higher point to be able to do a job better... if you go up one run, your decision whether to go up a second run is different from when you are on the ground. In another words, each time Brazil makes another advance its calculation changes about what happens. So with every other country. In another words, if Brazil manages to develop an effective nuclear cycle and does everything, and do it well, and develop a nuclear fuel for its submarines, no one is worried they are not going to use it in a weapon. But once Brazil reaches the fourth  or fifth run it calculation of the next is going to be different than when it was on the ground. I'm not an expert on nuclear, but this is a calculation... The further back somebody is the less their ambition to get to the top. When you are a mayor you think about being governor or congressman. You don't think about being president. When you get to be senator you begin to think of being president. That's the problem that I think the US, or people in the US government... Since there is no policy in the US with regard to this, in the sense that you could find what the US is doing...there is in the US [someone] that will say "The minute Brazil gets the cycle they are going want push it up not to eight per cent nuclear, or twenty per cent but...". And the argument that they have the agreement with Argentina, they have Tlatelolco, they have in the constitution doesn't reassure the United States. Why? Constitution? How many were changed in the last five years in Latin America. The agreement with Argentina... Argentina is not exactly a reliable... Why would that? If these are such good and strong why not just go into the NPT fully? I got in trouble arguing that with Brazilians.

 

ES: Now, to close our interview. In these years you have been working with Brazil, what did change in the views here in Washington about Brazil?

 

PH: That's a good question. My own sense is, number 1, that it has been a long time that the US and Brazil have really been... found the way to cooperate very effectively. Brazil... they, just for whatever reason, can't sort of... It is not that they disagree so much. It's that they have so much trouble to find areas in which they agree enough to do something together. This is really a shame. US and Brazil has 90% of the ethanol market and they couldn't find a way to work together. They signed all this papers and [there was] no follow-up, whatsoever. Brazil and the US are the two biggest red baskets in the world. Maybe Australia comes close. And they just can't find a way to agree on agriculture. They use the same machines, the same seeds, the same technologies. I just don't [understand] why that is the case. I think the US doesn't take Brazil's aspirations very seriously about being a global... Brazil is very precautious about the United States. Brazil doesn't quite trust the United States. Brazil sees the United States as just big enough [to], in the end, even if there is an agreement the United States can just push Brazil away. Brazil is just very, very wary. The United States doesn't help by not taking... I think that has been a constant. I really don't think that... Brazil right from the beginning, for example the Free Trade Agreement, put on the table theirs concerns about the US and why this was so difficult to move forward. They pushed US far enough, so they moved away from creating a Mercosur and NAFTA relationship... but rather negotiate country by country. But in the end the US didn’t [01:18:13] of the issues it wanted.

 

ES: So you think there was no change in the view about Brazil?

 

PH: There was a growing change. Certainly Fernando Henrique Cardoso raised the comfort zone of the United States considerably. He was a guy who knows (sic) the United States well. His cabinet was filled with people who had studied the United States, spoke more English than all the cabinets previous together spoke English. The various government agencies got along pretty well. And then the transfer was very well done, the transition to Lula, the maintenance. And there was growing... And during the Lula administration you had... And then, particularly when Brazil started to grow and kept its fiscal deficit down, it begun to experiment with the social programs all of a sudden, sort of a country with more compassion than it probably had showed in the past. The end of the ALCA negotiations was largely a disagreement between Brazil and the United States. If Brazil and the United States had reached an agreement everybody would have come along. After that Argentine meeting that was difficult for Bush, where did he go? He went to Brazil and had a barbecue with Lula. So I think there was a certain building of... but somehow... I think that Bush and Lula were too far apart ideologically to really turn into something. And then Obama really wanted to... And there was no way to move on, particularly after the Iran... And then the Snowden affair. It just... I find trouble thinking about this. Why is it that Brazil likes to think of itself as the United States in South America? Somehow the US and Brazil just remain... Here you had the best ambassador the US has had, Shannon, and it didn't work very well. The US had sort of two or three very senior level ambassadors and not much really happened. For some reason there is just some...

 

ES: It is the metaphor of unmet expectations.

 

PH: Whether it is... I keep going back and forth and if you come back in two weeks I may have a slightly different [opinion]. Whether this has to do with real issues... the issue of US subsidies, why does it make such a huge difference for Brazil and the Chinese they don't seem to... Is this a real issue or it is one of those issues that Brazil or the United States feel they have to hang on to and "that is a red line we are not going to accept". I just can't quite figure out if... I always use the story of... I had a long conversation with a couple of Mexicans who are good friends and who tell me about the NAFTA. It started off when one said "You know, the US and Mexico were further apart on crucial issues then Brazil and the United States are". So I said "How did you guys come to an agreement?". He says "The two countries decided they would have an agreement. And told us that we had to reach an agreement. That we couldn't leave the hotel, [even] if we had to stay in the hotel for two months, without getting an agreement". In other words, you have to agree, according to the Mexican, that you are going to agree before you seat down. Because if you don't do that it is just very hard to reach an agreement on some of these difficult, complex issues. The United States and Brazil never agreed to agree. We know that countries start off negotiating and they find paths and all. Brazil and the US haven't find a path towards an agreement. And even know I find it fascinating that Dilma has just stopped talking about the United States pretty much Even the Brazilian business community stopped talking about it. Macri is the one now [01:25:20] the charge. I think the United States.. They may be just as Woodrow Wilson once described after the World War II. The United States had shared a lot atomic technology with Britain. And a reporter asked Wilson Churchill "How is it that the United States gave such a good deal? How do you negotiate with the United States?". And Wilson Churchill said "You don't negotiate with the United States. Your sort of do everything you can to win their appreciation and then you depend on their good will." In other words, Brazil is not really going to... It is really very stubborn an doesn't want to give up anything. And the United States doesn't quite take Brazil seriously enough. Neither side is working very hard to win the good will of the other. And the US doesn't need Brazil that much. Brazil until the recent crisis looked like it was fine without the United States. They don't need each other so why go through... Mexico and the United States was different thing.

 

ES: Peter Hakim, thank you very much. It was a very interesting interview. You have very wise point of views. I appreciate it very much.

 

PH: What is going to happen with this? I haven't even asked that.

 

ES: I'm going to make a...