Obama Calls Brazil Model for North African Democratic Movements

President Barack Obama, declaring his support for Brazil’s rising global economic clout, said the country can serve as a model for pro-democracy movements around the world, including in North Africa and the Middle East.

Brazil is “a country that shows democracy delivers both freedom and opportunity to its people,” Obama told a crowd yesterday at Rio de Janeiro’s century-old Theatro Municipal. “A country that shows how a call for change that starts in the streets can transform a city, transform a country, transform a world.”

Obama, 49, arrived in Brazil March 19 to kick off a five- day tour aimed at deepening trade ties with Latin America the same day that an international coalition began military action against forces loyal to Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi. As Obama spoke in Rio, the military operation escalated with anti- aircraft fire heard in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

The crisis in North Africa has overshadowed Obama’s trip, as he’s had to juggle demands including national security briefings with official events and sightseeing. A planned press conference with President Dilma Rousseff was scrapped, allowing the two leaders to avoid questions about Brazil’s abstention in the United Nations Security Council vote last week authorizing air strikes against Libya.

Brazil’s Democracy

Still, the U.S. leader used yesterday’s speech to compare the development of free markets in Brazil since the end of the country’s last dictatorship in 1985 to the wave of democratic uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

“As two nations who have struggled over many generations to perfect our own democracies, the United States and Brazil know that the future of the Arab world will be determined by its people,” Obama said.

After spending his first day in Brasilia discussing trade and economic relations with Brazil’s first female president and a group of business executives, yesterday’s speech was meant to deliver a broader message to the Brazilian people that underscored shared values between the two countries.

“For so long, you were called a country of the future, told to wait for a better day that was always just around the corner,” Obama said. “Meus amigos, that day has finally come. And this is a country of the future no more. The people of Brazil should know the future has arrived. It is here now.”

Favela Tour

Earlier in the day, Obama and his wife, Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha visited a shantytown. Arriving in the City of God favela, the first family took in a performance of capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, and afterwards kicked around a soccer ball, with Obama noting that Brazilians are the “best soccer players in the world.”

Later they visited the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

Obama’s tour continues today in Chile, where he’ll meet with President Sebastian Pinera before heading tomorrow to El Salvador en route to Washington March 23.

Chile was the first nation in South America to sign a free trade agreement with the U.S., in 2003. Since then, as in Brazil and other parts of South America, China has been making inroads. China’s demand for copper allowed it to surpass the U.S. to become the country’s biggest export market in 2007. Chile is the world’s biggest producer of the metal.

Obama, during his remarks, highlighted the many opportunities for economic cooperation between the U.S. and Brazil, notably on energy and infrastructure. Brazil’s $2.2 trillion economy grew 7.5 percent last year, the fastest pace in more than two decades.

Olympics

His administration is seeking to help U.S. businesses who hope to profit from Brazil’s oil discoveries, the biggest in the Americas since 1976, and $200 billion in road, airport and hotel improvements needed before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 summer Olympics.

Obama said he intended to return to Rio as a spectator in 2016 and joked that it was a sore subject for him because his hometown of Chicago lost its bid to host the games.

“You might have heard that this city wasn’t exactly my first choice for the Summer Olympics,” Obama said. “But if the Games couldn’t be in my hometown of Chicago, there’s no place I’d rather see them than right here in Rio.”