The White House should propose a bilateral economic treaty that Brazil’s leader cannot refuse. Such a deal would, of course, be a huge political gamble for a US president facing plenty of difficulties elsewhere. But the benefits for the two countries and the rest of the region would be considerable …”

I wrote this 10 years ago in the Financial Times. The presidents I was hoping would strike such a historic deal were George W. Bush and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Of course, nothing happened. Two years ago, when Dilma Rousseff became president, I wrote another column, this time urging the Brazilian leader to take the initiative and make Barack Obama an offer he could not refuse. Again, nothing happened. President Rousseff is arriving in Washington on Monday to meet the US president and, again, nothing important will happen.

This is too bad, because few other bilateral relationships hold as much immediate promise for the US as a deeper one with Brazil. Obviously, the US has many other critical bilateral relationships – China or Russia for example. But slow evolution is the most likely scenario in most of these.

Complete article via Financial Times.