A Serious Country.

Brazil finally sheds the de Gaulle curse.

BRAZILIANS STILL WINCE WHEN REMINDED of the legendary slur, ascribed to the late French leader Charles de Gaulle, that "Brazil is not a serious country."

This powerhouse nation of 170 million, with the world's eight-ranking economy, indeed has reason for an inferiority complex. Brazil has never won a single Nobel Prize. Its income distribution is among the world's most disparate. It is best known for the scantiness of its bikinis, the antics of its Carnaval revelries, the thievery of its ruling class and the skill of its soccer players.

Yet, as a regional leader, Brazil has lately wielded clout of truly serious proportions.

In recent months, Brazil has successfully forced the Bush administration to retreat from its push to speed up the negotiations timetable for the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The treaty, covering a 34-nation trade zone stretching from Alaska to Patagonia, is one of President George W. Bush's top priorities and the United States had wanted negotiations to end by 2003.

Brazil, however, lobbied hard to keep the original 2005 deadline and won. Brazil wants time to solidify its own trade bloc with its Mercosur neighbors, and it fears that dropping import tariffs too quickly will cripple its industries. At the same time, however, Brasilia has insisted that the United States lower trade barriers that protect such industries as Florida's citrus and ease its antidumping regulations on steel, clothing and textiles--all export areas where Brazil is most competitive. In a sign that Brazil will assert itself as an important global player if Bush ignores those demands, Foreign Minister Celso Lafer has called the FTAA merely an option for Brazil.

In deference to Brazil's new political muscle, Bush has adopted an approach far different from Washington's typical strategy of benign neglect. Bush's Oval Office meeting in March with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso marked the earliest ever visit by a Brazilian leader to a new U.S. president, just two months after inauguration. Bush later told reporters: "We will work closely to iron out any differences" over free trade. As if that was not enough, he asked Cardoso to mediate the April spy plane dispute when Chinese leader Jiang Zemin visited Brazil.

U.S. diplomats have also been paying attention to Brazil's aggressive role in international negotiations on climate change. Brazilian diplomats have made some of the strongest arguments that industrialized countries should do more to cut back on fossil fuel emissions. Should the talks, now stalled with Bush showing no interest in the Kyoto accords, gain momentum again, Brazil will remain a force to be reckoned with.

In a recent report, the Latin America Program at the Council of Foreign Relations calls Brazil the "fulcrum" to U.S. policies in Latin America. Without good relations with Brazil, the report says, the United States won't see any real progress on the drug war, on trade or on strengthening democracy. The council has advised Bush to use Brazil to promote regional stability and U.S. commercial interests.

Economically speaking, Brazil has been taken seriously for years. Currently, some 400 of the Fortune 500 companies are doing business in the South American country, which claims more than double the direct foreign investment of Mexico--or US$30 billion vs. $13.2 billion in 2000. Brazil offers the largest potential Latin American market for the United States, and some economists predict trade between the two nations would triple from its current $15 billion within a few years of enactment of the FTAA.

The sleeping giant will be flexing its muscles in years to come, much like the regional power it should have become years ago. That other famous saying about Brazil, that "it's the country of the future, and always will be," may have to be revised.