Making Sense of Rapprochement Between Argentina and Brazil, 1979-1982

Leading Argentine and Brazilian scholars in the international relations of the South American Cone have recently complained about the excessive insistence on the essentially conflictive nature of Argentine-Brazilian relations, suggesting that such a view is not historically accurate (Cervo and Rapoport 2001; Cervo 2001). Con- flict was certainly a salient aspect but it was not the only one. A pattern of attempts at cooperation is strongly present throughout the history of Brazil and Argentina. It should be sufficient to mention here the attempts by Rio Branco in the early twen- tieth century, by Aranha and Pinedo in 1941, the understanding for an ABC Pact between Vargas and Perón in the 1950s, the agreements of Uruguayana in 1961 and the proposal for a sectoral customs union under Castello Branco in 1967. In- deed, it is arguable that attempts at cooperation have even outnumbered occasions of direct confrontation. Professor Lafer, former Foreign Minister of Brazil, identi- fied the attempt to diminish rivalry and explore possible constructive relations with Argentina as one of the recurrent themes in Brazilian foreign policy in the twenti- eth century. 1