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So we know—on January 20, 2001, it is to be the junior Bush after all who will be inaugurated as the 43rd president of the USA. We also know that the country and the Congress will be bitterly divided. But the divisions may be less evident than might be expected, at least in the short term. Despite all the rancor, harsh language, and legal maneuvers of the past five weeks, no one should underestimate the capacity of U.S. politicians for self-serving bromides, or the pundits that hover about them to rally around the president-elect and proclaim the triumph of “democracy” and “the rule of law” and the continuing good sense of the “American people.”

It was in fact only within a blinking of an eye on the morning after the U.S. Supreme Court justices had spoken, giving victory to the Governor of Texas, that the financial news networks were happily touting the surge in “Bush” stocks. In other words, the improved profit growth prospects of companies such as those that make oil drilling equipment, or lay pipe lines, or extract petroleum from protected areas of the Alaska wilderness (which the younger Bush had promised to open up as a response to the gasoline price rises that occurred during the campaign), or the tobacco companies, always generous with their campaign contributions, expecting relief from federal lawsuits. In sum, the sort of stocks a might-have-been Al Gore presidency would have presumably depressed.

The election campaign had been all about promises carefully crafted to the wishes of a generally prosperous and self-satisfied population. It was a narrow agenda, on which both candidates basically agreed and which had been defined for them by private opinion polls and contact groups; issues such as protecting social security, providing prescription drugs for the elderly, improving education—the litany of close-to-home issues George W. Bush cleverly reiterated when asserting his victory before the Texas House of Representatives on the evening of December 13, 2000, standing between the U.S. flag, the flag of the short-lived Independent Republic of Texas, and the portrait of old Sam Houston who took this large and rich chunk of North America from the Mexicans a hundred and seventy years ago.

Of course these campaigns promises were all about spending budget surpluses which may or may not materialize. But this was not an election that spoke much about sacrifices; it assumed a world of peace and prosperity, and any serious discussion of foreign affairs was largely absent. In fact, during the subsequent political and legal wrangles over “chads” and “dimples” in Florida the rest of the world disappeared entirely for most Americans. President Clinton’s historic visit to Vietnam, and Vicente Fox’s equally historic inauguration as president of neighboring Mexico, both passed with barely a mention. Even the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians found its way onto the back pages.

But don’t be fooled. Foreign policy will be a priority for the new administration. This is partly because domestic consensus, even on the narrow range of questions Bush outlined in his victory speech in Austin, will be very difficult to achieve, and partly because foreign policy is an area where bipartisanship has traditionally been more easily sustained, and an American president is less constrained by Congress—or at least such is the conventional wisdom. It is also the area which the president-elect has been quickest to announce his appointments, and where the long experience of family associates will be of most assistance to him.

For Bush II, moreover, there are some important items on the agenda of unfinished business from Bush I. Most significantly is Saddam Hussein. Dick Cheney, Bush II’s vice president-elect, was defense secretary under Bush I. General Colin Powell, the soon to be secretary of state, was then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Together they conducted the great military campaign of Desert Storm, which contained but did not eliminate the hard-backed old serpent of Baghdad. And the Bush family has a very personal score to settle with Saddam Hussein; he plotted, it should not forgotten, to assassinate president-elect George W.’s father.

Bush senior was also the creator of the Free Trade Area of the Americas idea (FTAA/ALCA). This was his one major “vision thing” as he once put it. George W. was very explicit about Latin America in his campaign, and about free trade, as well as proposing several specific policy initiatives to encourage person-to-person exchanges within the hemisphere, aid small businesses, and create mechanisms for debt swaps in return for tropical forest preservation. (The full text of his August 25, 2000 “Century of the Americas” Miami speech can be found on http://www.foreignpolicy2000.org).

The seriousness of Bush’s campaign commitments to Latin America gain added weight from the fact that its principal author was Robert B. Zoellick, a tough workaholic and Bush loyalist with scant regard for the ideologues who usually dominate Republican policy towards Latin America, at least in the campaign stage of any run for the presidency, and who will now be eagerly hoping for middle-level jobs in the new administration. But the ideologues fortuitously will be fixated by Cuba and such like dead issues, while the major players like Zoellick focus on more serious business. Zoellick was a protégé of James Baker (to whose legal maneuvering the junior Bush owes the presidency as to no other), working under him when Baker was Treasury Secretary under President Reagan and going on to become his Counselor and confidant when Baker became Secretary of State under the senior Bush. Zoellick has been described by Alan Greenspan, the revered Chairman of the Federal Reserve system and a man not known for easy compliments, as “one of the most effective officials in Washington.”

Some of George W. Bush’s sharpest criticism of the Clinton administration during the campaign was for its failure to follow-up on his father’s initiative in the Americas, especially the failure to secure “fast-track” authority from Congress. When presented with a trade agreement negotiated under fast-track rules, the U.S. Congress must approve or disapprove it without amendments. Without fast-track, each of the many legislative changes that make up a trade agreement would be subject to lobbying by special interest groups and could prompt individual members of Congress to try to alter individual provisions on tariffs that had been legislatively enacted. (NAFTA, for example, affected 11,000 separate tariffs.)

Bush also knows very well where Latin America is—certainly Mexico—and it will be a priority. Half the 200 billion dollars in trade the United States does with its southern neighbor passes through Texas. But a quarter of the 13 billion dollars or so of U.S. trade with Brazil passes through Florida, with Brazil now ranking as that pivotal state’s main trading partner. The Florida secretary of state, the now famous Katherine Harris who certified Florida’s critical votes for the soon to be president, has long lobbied to make Florida the headquarters of the secretariat for a potential FTAA. And the new president faces a series of very tight deadlines on the trade agenda which cannot be avoided, with Brazil and the United States slated to co-chair the FTAA negotiation to begin in November 2002, with an end point set currently for completion by 2005. With the next Summit of the Americas scheduled to take place in Quebec City in April 2001, president-elect Bush will need to get his Latin America and trade appointees quickly in place and, if at all possible, obtain fast-track authority very early on in his administration.

All of which now confronts Brazil with a difficult dilemma. The lack of proactive policy by Clinton on FTAA gave Brasília a breathing space to fashion an alternative policy, a series of building blocks which it was believed would strengthen Brazil’s hand in forthcoming negotiations with North America, initially by solidifying Mercosul, later by seeking bilateral free trade agreement between Mercosul and other South American countries, and by pursuing an illusory prospect of a free trade deal with Europe intended to balance the hegemony of the north.

But once the United States focuses again on the prospect of hemispheric free trade, as after January it surely will under President George W. Bush, Brazil risks finding itself isolated as its would-be partners, like Chile, follow their own national interest and jump quickly to grab the bigger prize offered by access to the vast NAFTA market. Brazil will need to decide if it will drag its feet in traditional style or move rapidly to split the trade portfolio away from Itamaraty and put an aggressive high-powered and business oriented negotiator in charge of its FTAA team; someone who will see FTAA as an opportunity for Brazil and not a threat, and who can mobilize Brazil to act with the self confidence the Mexicans displayed when they invented and then promoted and then made NAFTA what they wanted it to be—all in their own national interests. NAFTA was essential, the Mexicans believed, to “lock” their economic and then political reforms into place. While it is true that Mexico has benefited from the long sustained growth of the U.S. economy over the past decade, and may still be vulnerable to any U.S. economic downturn, subsequent history by and large has justified their aspirations and the election of Vicente Fox has confirmed their best hopes.

The administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso has done much to pull Brazil into the global mainstream, despite the all too obvious setbacks and backslidings. When financial crisis hit and threatened to unravel what had been achieved, the Brazilian president had the good sense to turn to a wily fox from Wall Street to head the Central Bank, a high stakes player who knew how to keep the wolves at bay. But on trade, a no less critical front, he has yet to find his Arminio Fraga. Despite the insulation provided by a large and inward looking economy, Brazil can and must compete in the international marketplace if it is to achieve and sustain the growth that will permit it at long last to successfully attend to the basic needs of its population in health and education and quality of life. Twenty-three percent of Brazil’s merchandise exports already go to the United States, and it is in the U.S. market that, economists like Albert Fishlow, José Scheinkman, and Sidney Weintraub argue, Brazil’s value added prospects are most promising within a hemispheric free trade regime.

With a new administration anxious for success in Washington, and with a Brazilian president with only two years left to secure his own legacy, it would seem to be a propitious moment to rethink U.S.-Brazilian relations and for Brasília to act with foresight and initiative; not, as will in all probability be the case, like the proverbial King Canute the Great, the eleventh century Viking warrior ruler who sat on the sea shore in Northern England believing he could hold back the tide, and was, of course, quickly swamped as a consequence.