When Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff canceled her October 23 White House state dinner, she created yet another foreign-policy embarrassment for the Obama administration. Rousseff’s visit, which was announced back in May, was supposed to be an opportunity for highlighting a new era of strategic cooperation between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest countries. It would have been the first state visit by a Brazilian leader since Bill Clinton hosted Fernando Henrique Cardoso in April 1995.
The bigger deal, however, is Obama’s persistent failure to make the U.S.-Brazil relationship a top priority. “No one doubts that forging a closer relationship between the United States and rising power Brazil makes good strategic sense,” writes former National Interest editor Nikolas Gvosdev, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. “Yet the Obama administration seemingly can never find the time to devote the energy and political capital needed to get the process underway.”
