As global political alignments shift and solidify, Latin America has become a particularly contested arena caught between the economic and political visions of the U.S. and China. Within this context, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has offered an opportunity to observe how the nations of Latin America navigate international disputes with weighty formal and informal alliances on either side of the political spectrum. Brazil is a particularly important example of this phenomenon as the most populous country in the region with the strongest economy that is led by a respected and well-seasoned executive figure: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In order to maintain their balancing act between world powers and in the interest of sustaining a rules-based international order, Brazil should take advantage of this situation by providing desperately needed military aid to tip the scales towards a peace that affirms Ukrainian sovereignty. 

Brazil is, indeed, in a unique position between the United States and China. As the two nations are increasingly at odds, it has tried to navigate a course between the two, which has led it to become closer to China in some cases while toeing the U.S. line in others. One metric of Brazil’s place in between the two powers is foreign investment: Brazil is China’s largest recipient of foreign investment in South America while its top source of foreign investment overall remains the United States [1]. In addition to the aforementioned foreign investment, China buys around a third of Brazil’s exports—about three times the amount the U.S. purchases [2]. China and Brazil also share a common interest in elevating non-Western powers. This can best be seen in the formation of the BRICS, an international organization that when founded in 2006 consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, and China before adding South Africa and more recently Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE [3]. Among other aims, some shared political goals of the group have included upsetting the U.S. dollar’s domination of international trade and providing alternatives to predominantly Western institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. In one trip to Beijing in 2023, Lula said “We hope that Brazil-China relations are able to go beyond trade. Nobody can stop Brazil from continuing to develop its relationship with China” [4]. 

Despite the growing influence of China in Brazil's economic sphere, the U.S. remains a strong economic and intermittent political partner for Brazil. Aside from the considerable foreign aid the U.S. contributes to Brazil, Lula and President Biden have recently announced shared political programs such as the Partnership for Workers’ Rights—an initiative seeking to expand their shared labor platforms to more countries [5]. Climate change is an especially pivotal issue for Brazil since it is the home of the vast, carbon-eliminating Amazon rainforest, which is crucial to the fight against carbon emissions. To ensure the survival of the forest, Brazil has reached out for international support in offsetting the cost of curbing Amazon deforestation. In response, the U.S. has contributed $500 million to the Amazon Fund, a sign of support despite it likely being a smaller amount than Brazil would have hoped [6]. Therefore, Brazil’s domestic political aims are more aligned with the U.S. while its vision for itself on the world stage relies more on China to avoid a Western-dominated global arena. Brazil’s ties to both countries are strengthened in the economic realm where, similarly, it hopes to capitalize on trade and investment connections to both powers.
Brazil’s approach––straddling between world powers––has been labeled “Active Non-Alignment” by professors Jorge Heine at Boston University, Carlos Fortin at the University of Sussex, and Carlos Ominami at the Chile 21 Foundation in their book Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order [7]. This term is useful in highlighting how the middle ground Brazil seeks to inhabit is defined not by complete neutrality but by taking individual issues on their merits—siding sometimes with China and other times with the U.S.. This way Brazil can maintain a foreign policy that allows it to benefit from relationships with multiple world powers at once while developing its legitimacy on the world stage from principled decisions. As Chinese and American actions continue to clash, more countries are seeing the potential benefits of utilizing Active Non-Alignment as demonstrated by Indonesia and India increasingly taking a similar approach [8]. 

This doctrine has been put to the test by the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia’s relationship to Brazil is similar to China, especially as Russia and China have grown closer as strategic partners and both are also BRICS members. The two also share an incredibly important trade relationship. Brazil’s economy is largely based on agribusiness, despite the nation’s poor soil, which is achieved through the high use of fertilizers [9]. As of 2022, Russia is the largest importer of these fertilizers—85% of which are imported—giving it immense leverage over Brazil’s chief industry [10]. Brazil is the world’s fourth largest producer of grains and, if these crucial fertilizer imports were to stop, it would hurt not only Brazil but the food supply of the entire world. 

This economic influence helps to explain Brazil’s mixed reaction to the war. Brazil is unique among the BRICS constituents in signing on to a UN resolution calling for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, which contained two points that the Brazilian press notably reported as being influenced by Brazilian representatives. Specifically, these points proposed that UN member states and international organizations need “to redouble support for diplomatic efforts to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine, consistent with the Charter;” and called for “the Russian Federation [to] immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders” [11]. This is indicative of Brazil’s current approach as it condemns Russia’s encroachment while calling for compromise and, on a larger scale, is emblematic of Brazil’s Active Non-Alignment Approach. Furthermore, Brazil has declined efforts by European countries and the U.S. encouraging them to sell arms to Ukraine instead of opting for a peace deal. Towards this end, Brazil has announced its desire to form a “peace club” of countries with strong ties to Russia and Ukraine to bring about a diplomatic end to the war. All of these factors make Brazil a decisive actor in the international response to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

While peace is obviously the ultimate goal and any continued loss of life a tragedy, Russia’s hard line approach to the issue makes peace impossible without unjust concessions from Ukraine. President Zelensky of Ukraine is currently unwilling to negotiate with Putin short of regaining all of Ukraine’s territory including Crimea, and Putin has recently reportedly demonstrated a willingness for a cease-fire along current lines [12]. President Lula’s statements make clear the contradictions in his own stance as he claimed “We need to find interlocutors who can sit down with President Putin and show the mistake he made by affecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine and we have to show Ukraine that it is necessary to learn to talk more so that we can avoid this war” [13]. Here he draws an absurd parallel between Russia’s failings for provoking the war and Ukraine’s purported failings to reach a compromise with their invaders. Any compromise would necessarily amount to legitimizing Russia’s expansion into Ukrainian territory. Such an acceptance of violations of international law is a dangerous precedent to set, especially in a global landscape where Xi Jinping warned Joe Biden of China’s inevitable “reunification” with Taiwan in late 2023 [14]. In refusing countries like Germany’s urges to send aid to Ukraine, Brazil has claimed it has an obligation to avoid further fueling the war. However, every party in a war is naturally interested in its eventual end; what matters is the terms of that peace. In this case, a peace that legitimizes Russian control over Ukrainian territory is unconscionable. The will of the Ukrainian people continues to affirm Zelensky’s stance to this effect as 88% of Ukrainians still believe in a future victory over Russia [15]. 

Despite this, it is still unrealistic to expect Brazil to begin taking a position such as sending aid to Ukraine with their agriculture sector on the line. Lula has thus far defended his actions in relation to Russia by claiming that he is ensuring Brazil’s fertilizer needs are met [16]. The first step towards a decisive stance in favor of Ukraine is for Brazil to further develop their domestic fertilizer industries, a process already underway as untapped resources of potassium have been found in the Amazon region, which fortunately is located in a grassland area, mitigating the environmental impact of the extraction [17]. However, the process of building up this industry will take time. In the meantime, there are still other countries that serve as viable fertilizer suppliers, such as Canada which exported 42% of the world’s potash, a type of fertilizer, in 2023 [18]. Eliminating a major producer would likely still cause increased agricultural prices, but this can be mitigated by diversifying the international sources as well as increasing domestic production of fertilizer.  This would allow Brazil more political latitude and create more security for the global food supply, which would remove Russia’s proverbial foot from the neck of the Brazilian economy. 

Furthermore, the move would be in Brazil’s interest. As mentioned earlier, Brazil’s current foreign policy consists not of complete neutrality, but selectively deciding who they stand with on different issues. As such, they have already implicitly accepted that their approach will not appease every actor in every situation. The Russia-Ukraine War provides a worthwhile situation for Brazil to hew closer to American policy. As Brazil grows closer to China, it needs to remain conscious of its relationship with the United States to maintain its balancing act. Another factor is Brazil’s own legitimacy in pursuing a fair-minded middle-ground. Lula’s posturing around being a potential mediator in a peace deal indicates this desire to elevate Brazil’s stature as an international actor. President Lula must not let Brazil’s Active Non-Alignment foreclose the opportunity for decisive action on issues that warrant it—hedging not on every individual issue but in the aggregate. Given the unlikelihood of a negotiated deal, Brazil should further explore the option of military aid to Ukraine. Brazil has already formally condemned Russia’s transgression against Ukraine and now it must follow through by materially enforcing that condemnation. In order to end the war with terms that respect sovereignty, boost their own legitimacy, and maintain their relationship with the United States, Brazil must go further in its support of Ukraine.