At the time, I quickly instructed the Brazilian Mission to the Organization of American States to present a draft resolution stating that—in accordance with the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance—aggression against one country of the hemisphere should be treated as aggression against all. We expressed our full support for the United States and laid out a legal framework for defensive action. Solidarity surged throughout the rest of Latin America as well.
Yet this immense capital, this friendly feeling and U.S. soft power, was quickly squandered. Washington ignored our offer of help. More fundamentally, soon after the widely popular war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Washington decided to shift focus to Iraq: a historic mistake of dramatic consequences. When no weapons of mass destruction were found there, the United States lost credibility in the eyes of the world, and the Bush administration lost the support of much of Latin America.
This outcome was not the result of bad luck or tactical mistakes. It was the result of an attempt by members of the administration to revive the age-old idea of Manifest Destiny: the notion that the United States can and should propagate its vision of democracy as a universal political formula. U.S. leaders decided not only to impose order on the world but to promote—by force if necessary—an institutional model they thought would ensure the welfare of all peoples.
At the end of the second world war, supranational mechanisms like the United Nations and the World Bank were created to enforce world peace and, later, to fight poverty and inequality. At that time, differences between political systems—between communist governments and democratic, market-oriented states—were accepted as part of the new order. Even the losers in the war were invited to participate in the emerging system. Gradually, however, the strongest powers began to avoid the United Nations, and the idea of a collaborative contract between countries with different world views lost ground. Especially after the end of the cold war, this left the United States with essentially free rein. And the result, ultimately, was Iraq.
It is now high time for leading countries to once again ground their actions on moral values and principles—while avoiding fundamentalist obsessions. It’s time to return to the United Nations’ original objectives: to preserve peace and reduce poverty while protecting human rights and accepting national and cultural diversity.
This is what Latin America wants from the next leader of the United States, much more than any bilateral expression of support or good will. Such gestures will, of course, be welcome. But alliances in the region should not be grounded, as they have been in the past, on instrumental purposes alone. The United States must make it clear that deeper principles are involved.
What’s needed is a real spirit of collaboration. Latin America wants to help build a more symmetrical and equitable global order, based on needs and interests, but also on moral values and respect for cultural autonomy.
Wishful thinking? Idealism? Maybe. But that’s what’s needed today to counteract the pessimism brought on by the United States’ unilateralism and its infringements of international law. To be credible, Washington’s rapprochement with Latin America will require it to set an example. If the United States can give tangible proof that it can act with generosity—for example, by reducing domestic subsidies that hinder access to U.S. markets—then perhaps it will be able to rebuild lost trust. If not, it will remain the target of suspicion and will be unable to attain its objectives or consolidate a more stable, just and reliable global order.
