Description
This article compares the foreign policy and international insertion strategies of the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, focusing on three key areas: 1) relations with the Western bloc, particularly the United States (US) and the European Union; 2) relations with the axis that challenges Western hegemony, notably China and Russia; and 3) governance and regional integration. Brazil and Mexico are currently the only actors in Latin America with a coherent international agenda and the necessary instruments to assume some form of regional leadership. Despite the ideological affinity shared by their leaders, we suggest that the governments of López Obrador and Lula have different priorities and strategies for international insertion. Furthermore, Lula's election for a third presidential term, instead of bringing Brazil and Mexico closer together, seemed to impose new obstacles to the Mexican president's plans to strengthen his influence in Latin America and the Caribbean as a way of counterbalancing the asymmetries that mark Mexico-US relations. The theoretical basis of this study is grounded in Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis. The methodology involves content analysis of speeches by the presidents and their respective foreign ministers and document analysis.
