For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 20, 2003

Joint Statement Between the United States of America and the Federative Republic of Brazil

The United States and Brazil resolve to create a closer and qualitatively stronger relationship between our two countries. It is time to chart a newly purposeful direction in our relationship, guided by a shared vision of freedom, democracy, peace, prosperity, and well-being for our peoples, in order to promote hemispheric and global cooperation.

We are among the most populous democracies in the world. Forged from diverse cultures, proving that diversity is our strength. Continental in size and immigrant in origin, we share the fundamental belief that freedom, democracy, and social justice are universal aspirations, essential for peace and prosperity and unconstrained by either culture or level of economic development. Our commitment to human rights for all people in every nation is strong and unwavering.

We agree that representative democracy and the rule of law are indispensable to building modern economies and political systems that promote growth, accountability, transparency, and stability, and encourage economic opportunity without favor or prejudice. Democracy is essential to sustainable development. In the same way, reducing inequality and improving social justice contribute to stability and international security.

We affirm that countries should embrace policies that promote growth and social inclusion, which are the key to increasing incomes, improving standards of living, and ending poverty and hunger. We share the conviction that governments should work to empower their people through good governance, fighting corruption, ensuring personal security, encouraging enterprise, and providing all citizens access to high-quality education, adequate health, and nutritional care.

We agree that free trade furthers prosperity and development, contributes to the promotion of entrepreneurial initiative and to the strengthening of the private sector, with positive social impact. We also agree that trade liberalization can contribute to dynamic growth, technological innovation, and to individual and collective advancement over the long term. We therefore reaffirm our commitment to fighting protectionism.

We have built creative, entrepreneurial societies. Regionally as well as globally, we have important responsibilities in areas such as commerce, science and technology, energy, environmental protection, education, and health. The currents of commerce and culture that link our societies run strong and deep. Our partnership of shared values leads us to seek a natural partnership of shared endeavors.

As two nations recognizing both the promise and desperate poverty of Africa, and the strong ties and African heritage of many of our citizens, we commit ourselves to working together for an African continent that lives in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity. We intend to pursue this goal through our diplomacy and the promotion of projects that reinforce economic, commercial, social, and cultural ties with the countries of Africa.

Therefore, the United States and Brazil will engage in regular consultations, working together for prosperity, democratic governance, and peace in the hemisphere and beyond. Reaffirming our commitment to advance common values, we will continue to work together to protect and advance democracy, human rights, tolerance, religious freedom, free speech and independent media, economic opportunity, and the rule of law.

We will cooperate on issues of mutual interest that contribute to the defense and security of the hemisphere, bolstering joint efforts to counter terrorism, narcotics trafficking and consumption, trafficking in persons, and other transnational criminal challenges to regional peace.

Our strength lies in the ability of our people to shape their destiny and to realize their aspirations for a better life. That is why the United States and Brazil are and will remain allies in the cause of democracy. We will share our experience in nurturing and strengthening democratic institutions the world over, thereby fighting challenges to the democratic order from poverty, illiteracy, intolerance, and terrorism. Moreover, we recognize that successfully addressing the hemisphere's challenges requires collaborative and cooperative efforts and, to that end, we will work together to strengthen the Organization of American States, the bulwark of regional cooperation, including through implementation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. We need to reinforce the U.N. system, especially by exploring ways to make the Security Council and other U.N. bodies more effective and more responsive to current international challenges and realities.

We have much to learn from each country's unique experience in modernizing our economies; achieving advances in science, technology, and medicine; finding solutions to pressing environmental problems; addressing energy challenges and needs; and advancing quality education and expanding enrollments in primary education. We are committed to working together to find concrete ways to extend the benefits of these reforms to all our people.

We will cooperate, including through direct contacts between the business communities of our countries, to advance U.S.-Brazilian economic, trade, and investment relations; and recognizing our responsibility as co-chairs of the negotiations, to successfully conclude the negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas by January 2005.

We will work together to preserve and promote stability and growth in the global economy. Opening trade and resisting protectionism are essential for meeting that challenge. We support an open, equitable, transparent, and rules-based multilateral trading system, and we will work together to strengthen it, especially by working for a successful completion of the WTO negotiations of the Doha Development Agenda by January 2005.

Today, we pledge to deepen the U.S.-Brazilian partnership in mutually positive ways, always seizing opportunities to advance the diversified interests we have in common, always seeking to reconcile differences through dialogue and engagement. Our constructive partnership is not an end in itself, but a means to all these ends. It is reinforced by, inter alia, academic, cultural and commercial ties, and increasing kinship among our people. In this process of further enhancing our bilateral relations, we have decided to give special attention to the following areas: science and technology, energy, education, health, economic growth, and agriculture.

As further indication of our close ties, U.S. and Brazilian advisors will consult often, maintaining a dialogue on these matters of mutual interest. We have also agreed on a framework for high-level consultations and joint working groups across the broad spectrum of areas in which we are determined to institutionalize our enhanced cooperation.

For the United States and Brazil, this is a day marked by the crossing of a new threshold into a higher stage in our relationship. We have before us the possibility to realize the full potential of such a relationship. We will work to seize that opportunity, for our benefit and for all those with whom we share this increasingly interdependent world.

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