How they see us: Brazil vents over NSA snooping

“Furious Dilma” gave quite a performance at the U.N. last week, said Eva Saiz in El País (Spain). In a fiery speech, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff denounced cyber--espionage as both “an attack on freedom of expression” and “an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations.” Rousseff didn’t name President Obama or the National Security Agency, but the reason for her fury was clear. She had already canceled a state dinner with Obama because of revelations—based on documents leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden to American reporter Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil—that the NSA had intercepted millions of emails and phone calls of Brazilians, including Rousseff’s own personal communications with her cabinet ministers.

Yet Obama has refused even to listen to her justified complaint, said Eliane Cantanhêde in Folha de São Paulo (Brazil). Not only was he absent from the General Assembly when Rousseff took the podium, but so were his secretary of state and national security adviser; even his U.N. ambassador showed up late. “If the United States owed an apology to Brazil for the illegal interception of data belonging to citizens, businesses, diplomats, and the government, it now owes two: the second for this insolent snub of the Brazilian president.”

Rousseff still comes out ahead, said Fábio Zanini, also in Folha. “It’s unheard-of for a Latin American leader to lose political points at home by confronting the Yankees.” Canceling the Washington trip hasn’t hurt her, or Brazil, one bit. There were no major agreements to be signed there, and Washington had already declined to give Brazil what it really wants: public backing for a permanent Brazilian seat on the U.N. Security Council. Yet Obama needn’t worry that relations are badly damaged. Rousseff “has no interest in transforming Brazil into a Venezuela,” a knee-jerk opponent of U.S. interests.

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Don’t be so sure, said Oliveiros S. Ferreira in O Estado de São Paulo (Brazil). Rousseff makes foreign policy all by herself now, ignoring the foreign ministry, and she seems to believe “that Brazil—given its territory, its position, its population, and its economy—ranks among the countries that decide the fate of the world.” She feels that Brazil is uniquely placed as an emerging economic powerhouse and South America’s biggest economy. And like her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, she wants to unite Latin America “not against, but apart from, the United States.”

She may never get the chance, said Vicente Nunes in Correio Braziliense. Upon returning from New York, the president encountered The Economist’s cover story entitled “Has Brazil blown it?” It makes a strong case that the boom times Rousseff evokes are long gone, and that our country is suffering from a litany of economic policy woes: high inflation, stagnant growth, ballooning deficits, crumbling infrastructure, and poor social services. The Economist blamed it all on Rousseff’s “lack of vision” and predicted she wouldn’t be re-elected next year. Slamming America makes for good theater, but Rousseff will have to deliver more than that to make her case in the months ahead.