The Vargas Administration and the Proposal of the ABC Pact: The Place of Peronist Argentina in Brazilian Foreign Policy

Abstract

To return to the history of Brazil's participation in South-American economic regionalism has gradually become of paramount need as the issue of regional integration is at the top of the country's foreign policy agenda. This article aims to contribute with a study of this participation, by examining the failed attempt to revive the ABC Pact in the Brazilian political arena in the 1950s. Based on many documentary sources, our goal is to analyse the internal and external conditions that ended the Vargas Administration's engagement in the Peronist proposal to build an economic bloc among Argentina, Brazil and Chile through a customs union. Herein, we present the reasons that led to the adoption of a realistic and pragmatic position by the Brazilian government regarding the ABC project, which were far removed from any possibility of getting involved in the project or even from not frustrating early expectations.