Hedging Comes to Latin America: Gauging Brazil’s Coping Strategies vis-à-vis the Sino-US Peer Competition

Abstract

The proliferating Sino-US peer competition is increasingly impacting Latin American states and triggering uncertainty. As China’s expanding influence in the region challenges longstanding US supremacy in the western hemisphere and reshapes the strategic calculus for regional states, hedging behaviour becomes increasingly opportune. This most notably includes Brazil, the largest state in Latin America both politically and economically, whose hedging behaviour oscillated between governments, a characteristic normally associated with states facing higher systemic pressures. As such, how does the Sino-US peer competition impact Brazil’s hedging strategy? And why do coping behaviours differ on various indices between different administrations, from Lula to Bolsonaro? Findings suggest that depending on whether the incumbent government was left- or right-wing, Brazil’s hedge was recalibrated as either pro- or anti-US regional supremacy.