News Analysis: Brazil, U.S. to move beyond spying spat, but ties remain distant

The upcoming meeting between Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama signals the two countries will move beyond their spying spat, but observers say bilateral ties will remain distant due to Brazil's foreign-policy leaning.

The two leaders are set to meet on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Panama Friday and Saturday, when the details of Rousseff's working visit to Washington later this year are expected to be announced.

Rousseff's planned Washington trip marks a positive step forward for Brazil-U.S. relations strained by widespread U.S. political and industrial spying on Brazil's government and state oil giant Petrobras, which whistle blower Edward Snowden brought to light years ago.

The revelations led Rousseff first to cancel a state visit to Washington scheduled in October 2013. She then spearheaded an international campaign at the United Nations to block the U.S. National Security Agency and similar organizations from blanket spying on global leaders, citizens and corporations.

But according to political observers interviewed by Xinhua, the diplomatic distancing between the two countries is driven by more than spying.

The spying scandal has an immediate and significant impact on bilateral ties, but Brazil's more independent foreign policy has had an even greater effect, said Jose Luiz Fiori, professor of International Political Economy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Fiori said cooling diplomatic relations with the U.S. has more to do with Brazil's decision to foster closer ties with its South American neighbors and the BRICS, which gathers the world's five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

"I believe Brazil's new position of leadership in South America and decision not to automatically align itself with the U.S. in the international sphere contributed much more to the cooling of bilateral relations than the 'discovery' of the obvious, that the U.S. and all powers spy on the Brazilian government and companies," he said.

Brazil's reaction to two major events in 2014 -- its silence on the Ukrainian crisis and its strong condemnation of Israel's ground invasion of Gaza -- highlights the country's more independent foreign policy, Fiori said.

Carlos Pinkusfeld Bastos, professor of economics at the Federal University, said economic ties between Brazil and the U.S. have also changed, making them less reliant on each other.

The U.S. lost its position as Brazil's largest trading partner to China in 2009.

"The U.S. remains an important partner for Brazil. However, its importance has been greatly reduced in the past 15 years and I do not see any strong reasons to think it will increase substantially again," Bastos said. Endi