This paper has analyzed the contemporary regional financial projects of three countries of the Americas: the United States, Venezuela, and Brazil. Although the three clearly have unequal material capabilities for expanding their influence, each has initiated non-trivial changes in its financial and monetary links with its neighbors.
Particularly after the financial crisis, Venezuela and Brazil have more opportunities than their structurally unequal positions would suggest. Moreover, the three regional projects interpret “financial equality” in dissimilar ways, with important reflections in their policy preferences. The U.S. vision emphasizes establishing the rule of law in financial transactions and contracts, but is blind to the notion that the U.S. control of a global reserve currency or a preponderance of votes at the IMF or World Bank might give it unequal financial power. Venezuelan policymakers are concerned about financial access for excluded social groups and countries, and about control of international financial markets, but much less interested in equality under the law for private capitalists. Brazil’s regional financial project favors financial property rights, and thus is pro-banks and pro-market, yet sees equal access for borrowers as maximized by allowing room for state, private national, and foreign capital. Although Brazil’s prosperity and size gives it a strong position in the region, its ideas have an appeal
that goes beyond throwing its weight around for its own advantage. Brazil also seeks more equal financial policy space for national governments, and has pursued this goal by resisting treaty obligations (pushed by the U.S.) to abjure capital controls, additional limits on foreign capital, and other instruments of financial statecraft. In years to come, the attractiveness of each would-be-leader state’s financial ideas will be a resource for achieving regional influence, in addition to the three countries’ material financial capabilities.
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