From Developing Country Leader to Flexible Negotiator: New Directions in Brazilian Trade Strategy

Brazil has changed its negotiation strategy in World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. In the first half of the WTO era (1995–), Brazil adopted a strong developing country leadership role as coordinator and spokesperson of the G20 group of developing countries. More recently, however, this group has disappeared from the negotiation scene. This article examines how Brazil has departed from a 2000 status quo and arrived at a more flexible approach, less reliant on the industrialized-developing divide as a structuring principle of its diplomacy. Using WTO negotiation documents, trade delegate interviews, dispute settlement case law, and secondary literature, I outline the contours of new directions in Brazilian trade policy. These include joint legislative initiatives with the EU, a move towards the plurilateral level on non-traditional issues, a greater heterogeneity of dispute settlement targets, and a newly flexible handling of its rights under the WTO's special and differential treatment status. The article contributes to ongoing debates on Brazil's status in international affairs, its reliance on large coalitions, and the maintenance of followership as key directives of its foreign policy, and scholarship that sees Brazil as stuck in a ‘graduation dilemma’.