USA/Brasilien — Gates, Brazilian Defense Minister Sign Security Pact

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2010 — Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates and Brazil­ian Defense Min­is­ter Nel­son Jobim signed a new defense coop­er­a­tion agree­ment today that Gates said pro­vides an exam­ple of part­ner­ship and “offers a trans­par­ent, pos­i­tive mod­el for engage­ment through­out the Amer­i­c­as.” >
The agree­ment for­mal­izes the grow­ing secu­ri­ty part­ner­ship between the Unit­ed States and Brazil, while estab­lish­ing a frame­work to build on that rela­tion­ship, Gates said. “This agree­ment will lead to a deep­en­ing of U.S.-Brazil defense coop­er­a­tion at all lev­els and will demon­strate how much more effec­tive­ly we can con­front shared secu­ri­ty chal­lenges when we work in part­ner­ship,” he said at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny in his Pen­ta­gon din­ing room. 

The accord will expand the two coun­tries’ rela­tion­ship into promis­ing areas of mutu­al inter­est, includ­ing research and devel­op­ment, logis­tics sup­port, tech­nol­o­gy secu­ri­ty and the acqui­si­tion of defense prod­ucts and ser­vices. This coop­er­a­tion not only will strength­en both coun­tries’ mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties, but also will pro­vide indus­tri­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, Gates noted. 

In addi­tion, the agree­ment opens the door for more infor­ma­tion exchanges about oper­a­tional expe­ri­ences, defense tech­nol­o­gy and peace­keep­ing oper­a­tions, as well as more com­bined train­ing and edu­ca­tion and joint mil­i­tary exercises. 

Gates laud­ed Brazil’s lead­er­ship of the U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Haiti dur­ing the past six years, par­tic­u­lar­ly in lead­ing Unit­ed Nations relief and recov­ery efforts fol­low­ing the dev­as­tat­ing Jan­u­ary earth­quake. Thou­sands of U.S. and Brazil­ian troops have worked side by side since the earth­quake to bring human­i­tar­i­an aid and secu­ri­ty to the Hait­ian peo­ple, he noted. 

“The agree­ment is a for­mal acknowl­edge­ment of the many secu­ri­ty inter­ests and val­ues we share as the two most pop­u­lous democ­ra­cies in the Amer­i­c­as,” Gates said. “These com­mon inter­ests make Brazil’s grow­ing involve­ment and sig­nif­i­cance in glob­al affairs a wel­come devel­op­ment for the Unit­ed States.” 

Jobim, to whom Gates extend­ed birth­day wish­es today, shared Gates’ enthu­si­asm about new oppor­tu­ni­ties the defense coop­er­a­tion agree­ment will open up between the two coun­tries. Asked if Brazil had decid­ed what new fight­er jet it will buy, Jobim said he expects to make a rec­om­men­da­tion by the end of May. U.S. offi­cials are hope­ful Brazil will choose the U.S. F/A‑18 Super Hor­net over the French Rafale or Swedish Gripen aircraft. 

“We would like to have the Brazil­ians choose the Super Hor­net. That would add to our strate­gic rela­tion­ship,” a senior defense offi­cial told reporters. “But this agree­ment … con­tains much more than what each coun­try might buy or pro­cure from each oth­er. There are many oth­er ele­ments to it.” 

Gates ini­tial­ly had planned to trav­el to Brasil­ia for the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny. How­ev­er, the venue was resched­uled because Jobim is accom­pa­ny­ing Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luiz Iná­cio Lula da Sil­va to the two-day nuclear secu­ri­ty sum­mit Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma is host­ing in Washington. 

Gates will leave tomor­row for Latin Amer­i­ca, where he plans to vis­it Peru, Colom­bia and the Caribbean to reaf­firm U.S. com­mit­ment to the region and pro­mote clos­er defense cooperation. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)