Understanding Brazil:The Executive–Legislative Nexus in Brazilian Foreign Policy

In the last installment of this interview series, Clarita Costa Maia examined the institutional architecture behind Brazilian foreign policymaking, arguing that understanding Brazil requires looking well beyond the formal constitutional framework and the traditional centrality of Itamaraty. She explained how Congress, parliamentary committees, technical staff, political parties, civil society, and the country’s broader epistemic community increasingly influence Brazil’s international agenda, highlighting the importance of what she describes as “cognitive diplomacy.” In this installment, she builds upon that analysis by exploring in greater depth the interaction between the Executive and Legislative branches, the evolving role of Itamaraty, the domestic actors shaping Brazil–Israel relations, the political instrumentalization of issues such as Gaza, terrorism and human rights, and the long-term diplomatic strategies most likely to succeed in Brazil’s complex political landscape.

Installment II

The Executive–Legislative Nexus in Brazilian Foreign Policy

1. How does the Brazilian Congress institutional relationship with the Executive Branch affect the formulation and implementation of Brazil’s external relations?

Brazilian foreign policy is often described as an Executive-driven domain. That description, as I told you, is broadly accurate, but incomplete. The National Congress does not ordinarily conduct diplomacy, negotiate agreements or represent Brazil internationally. It nevertheless exercises indispensable constitutional, legislative, budgetary and political functions that can authorize, constrain, redirect or legitimize the international action of the Executive Branch.

Under the Federal Constitution, the President of the Republic is responsible for maintaining relations with foreign States and accrediting their diplomatic representatives. The President also concludes treaties, conventions and other international acts, subject, where constitutionally required, to congressional approval. 

Congress, in turn, has exclusive authority to decide definitively upon treaties, agreements and international acts that entail substantial obligations or commitments for the national patrimony. This architecture establishes neither complete presidential autonomy nor a congressional monopoly, but a system of constitutionally distributed authority. 

Congressional influence operates through several channels.

An additional indicator of Congress’s growing relevance is the increasing frequency with which the Minister of Foreign Affairs has been summoned or invited to appear before congressional committees to explain the government’s foreign-policy positions, including Brazil’s response to the Hamas–Israel war. Equally noteworthy is the unprecedented level of parliamentary scrutiny directed at the Ministry itself. On at least three occasions, motions of repudiation were introduced in response to statements made by a Brazilian diplomat that members of Congress regarded as amounting to hate speech or manifestations of antisemitism. Regardless of one’s assessment of the merits of those motions, their recurrence represents an institutional development without precedent in the history of the Brazilian Parliament, which has traditionally treated Brazil’s diplomatic corps—and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in particular—with exceptional deference and respect. This evolution illustrates that foreign policy, once largely insulated from domestic political contestation, has become increasingly subject to legislative oversight and political accountability.

Fifth, Congress performs a representative and agenda-setting function. Parliament reflects regional, ideological, religious, economic and sectoral interests that may not be fully incorporated into the professional diplomatic bureaucracy. Parliamentary fronts, committee debates, legislative missions, resolutions and public statements can elevate issues that the Executive would otherwise treat as secondary.

The most recent example is the document that was the object of your column this week.  Signed in Brasília on 8 July 2026, a manifesto addressed to the Chairs of the Federal Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Senator David Alcolumbre and Representative Hugo Motta, as well as to the leaders of Brazil’s Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, the Brazilian Jewish community, and Brazilian society at large. It was endorsed by the Apostolic House (Casa Apostólica)—a coalition of evangelical Christian leaders representing multiple churches and denominations from eight Brazilian states—and by members of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front of the National Congress (Frente Parlamentar Evangélica do Congresso Nacional). 

The document constitutes a public declaration of historical repentance for past omissions in confronting antisemitism and reaffirms solidarity with the Jewish people following the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023. 

Acknowledging the Holocaust as a defining moral lesson and condemning the resurgence of antisemitism in political, academic, cultural, religious and digital spaces, the signatories ask forgiveness from the Brazilian Jewish community and the State of Israel for their previous silence. 

They reaffirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, reject all forms of antisemitism, including when disguised as political or ideological discourse, and advocate a balanced commitment to international law, humanitarian principles, religious freedom, interfaith dialogue and a negotiated and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Beyond its declaration of principles, the manifesto establishes a long-term institutional agenda. It commits churches and affiliated organizations to promoting Holocaust education, combating antisemitism, strengthening cooperation with Jewish institutions, encouraging interreligious dialogue, supporting legislative initiatives against antisemitism and terrorism, fostering academic and cultural exchanges with Israel, and engaging in sustained public advocacy for historical truth, human dignity and religious coexistence. 

Rather than presenting itself as a symbolic declaration, the document seeks to become a permanent framework for civic engagement, public education and institutional cooperation, while inviting public authorities, universities, civil society organizations and religious communities to join a collective effort to reject hatred, preserve historical memory and strengthen Brazil–Israel relations.

The most precise conclusion is therefore that Congress seldom controls the daily conduct of Brazilian diplomacy, but it shapes the legal and political environment within which diplomacy occurs. 

Its influence is often reactive rather than initiatory, fragmented rather than centralized, and issue-specific rather than comprehensive. 

Yet, on politically salient questions, congressional mobilization can materially alter the cost of an Executive decision.

2. In one word, how could you summarize this relationship? 

The relationship is best understood as one of Executive predominance under legislative constraint, rather than strict institutional separation.

3. Beyond the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself, what institutional features of the Brazilian Executive Branch should foreign diplomats understand when engaging with Brazilian foreign policy?

Foreign diplomats should first appreciate that the internal distribution of authority over Brazilian foreign policy has shifted considerably over the past two decades.

For much of Brazil’s modern history, the Foreign Minister was unambiguously the President’s chief adviser on world affairs. That began to change with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first term, when decision-making consolidated around what observers took to calling a foreign policy triumvirate — the President, the Foreign Minister, and the Ministry’s Executive Secretary — joined by an increasingly powerful figure operating from inside the Presidency itself: the Special Adviser for International Affairs. Because that adviser sits within the presidential structure rather than the Ministry, the role has accumulated real weight in shaping and coordinating foreign policy, a dynamic that persisted through Lula’s second term as well.

That arrangement largely carried over into Lula’s second term.

The Bolsonaro administration took a different approach, creating a high-level foreign policy advisory body, in parallel to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose composition drew significant public criticism, as several members were seen as lacking real diplomatic or academic expertise in international affairs.

Under Lula’s current administration, the Special Adviser for International Affairs — a post now held by Celso Amorim — has again become exceptionally prominent, often seen as shaping strategic foreign policy guidance, and in some cases driving decisions, to a degree that rivals or even exceeds the Foreign Minister’s own influence.

Another notable feature is the growing informal influence of the First Lady over select international issues. She holds no formal constitutional authority in this area, but her public engagement and political closeness to the President have made her an increasingly visible presence in parts of Brazil’s international agenda.

Structurally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself is fairly conventional, organized into geographic and functional departments much like foreign ministries elsewhere. What’s more distinctive is that nearly every federal ministry maintains its own International Affairs Office, almost always headed by a career diplomat seconded from Brazil’s diplomatic service.

Likewise, the Chairs of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate are typically supported by international advisers who are themselves career diplomats. This arrangement has clear benefits — technical expertise and institutional continuity — but it also spreads the Ministry’s institutional culture and analytical outlook across the federal bureaucracy. As a result, other ministries and even the Legislative Branch may find it harder to develop genuinely independent perspectives on foreign policy, given how pervasive the diplomatic corps’ influence has become.

This pattern extends to prominent political figures whose work touches heavily on international affairs. Former ministers and senior legislators often keep career diplomats on staff as advisers. Senator Tereza Cristina, a former Minister of Agriculture and a leading opposition figure, is a good example, given how internationalized agricultural policy and trade negotiations have become, her office has consistently drawn on diplomatic expertise to shape its positions on foreign policy and international economic issues.

The Executive possesses significant structural advantages. It controls diplomatic information, maintains the professional foreign service, conducts negotiations, communicates with foreign governments and is capable of responding rapidly to international developments. The Presidency also provides the highest level of political direction, while Itamaraty supplies institutional memory, diplomatic expertise and operational continuity.

Congress, by contrast, is plural, decentralised and governed by competing electoral incentives. It rarely speaks with a single voice on international affairs. Its engagement tends to intensify when a foreign-policy issue produces visible domestic consequences, affects influential constituencies or becomes connected to broader ideological conflict.

In practice, the relationship varies according to the nature of the matter.

On highly technical or low-salience issues, Congress frequently defers to the Executive and to Itamaraty’s expertise. On trade, defence, human rights, environmental policy, sanctions, regional crises or relations with politically sensitive countries, parliamentary scrutiny tends to be substantially greater.

The Executive also depends upon congressional cooperation whenever an international initiative requires treaty approval, implementing legislation, budgetary appropriations or sustained political support. Conversely, Congress often depends upon the Executive for diplomatic information, access to negotiations and the technical formulation of international commitments.

The result is a relationship of mutual dependence combined with institutional asymmetry. The Executive normally initiates and implements foreign policy; Congress confers democratic legitimacy, supplies domestic legal effect and determines whether the policy can be politically and institutionally sustained.

This relationship is also affected by presidential coalition-building. In Brazil’s multiparty system, foreign policy may become part of a broader process of legislative bargaining. Committee leadership, rapporteurships, parliamentary fronts and relations with party leaders can determine whether a foreign-policy initiative advances smoothly or becomes entangled in domestic political opposition.

Foreign governments should therefore avoid treating the Brazilian Executive as the sole relevant interlocutor. A commitment expressed by the Presidency or a ministry may not automatically translate into legislation, congressional approval or durable national policy. Effective diplomacy requires engagement with both branches and an understanding of the domestic coalition capable of sustaining a particular international position.

4. What role do Brazilian states and municipalities play in foreign policy?

Formally, none. Foreign policy in Brazil is a strictly federal prerogative, reserved to the Union under the Constitution. States and municipalities have no authority to sign treaties, establish diplomatic relations, or bind the country to international obligations. That power rests solely with the President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In practice, though, subnational governments have carved out a real and growing space for international engagement — what’s known in Brazil as paradiplomacy. States like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and several agricultural powerhouses in the South and Centre-West maintain active international partnerships around trade, investment, and technical cooperation. Municipalities do the same, often driven by tourism, innovation hubs, or environmental initiatives. None of this involves treaty-making; it operates through cooperation protocols, sister-city agreements, and participation in transnational networks — instruments with no binding force under international law.

States can sign cooperation protocols and sister-city agreements, promote trade and investment, run international offices, and join transnational networks.

States can also negotiate financing agreements directly with multilateral development banks like the World Bank or the IDB to fund infrastructure projects. Even then, the Federal Senate has to approve the deal, since it touches public debt and fiscal responsibility rules.

The clearest illustration of both the reach and the limits of this space came in October 2023, when the governors of Goiás and São Paulo traveled to Israel to express solidarity after the Hamas attacks — a move that put them publicly at odds with the federal government’s own position, yet stayed entirely within constitutional bounds precisely because no agreement was ever negotiated or signed. It was political expression, not foreign policy in the formal sense.

So the honest answer is: states and municipalities have no constitutional role in shaping Brazil’s foreign policy, but they’ve become increasingly consequential actors in Brazil’s international life all the same — operating in the space between commerce, diplomacy, and politics that formal constitutional categories don’t fully capture.

5. What role can the local Jewish community play in supporting diplomatic engagement with Brazil?

Before I answer, let me just say — these are my own views as an independent observer and scholar of Brazilian institutional life. I’m not speaking for CONIB, I’m not a member of it, I’m not a representative of it. This is just how I read the situation.

I think the local Jewish community — Brazilian Israeli Confederation (CONIB) and its state federations — can be an extraordinary bridge for foreign diplomats trying to understand Brazil. And I mean that quite literally. They know the texture of this country in a way that official channels often just don’t capture. They understand how something is really landing in Congress, or in the press, or in a particular state, not just how it reads in a formal statement. That’s genuinely valuable.

But here’s the thing diplomats need to internalize, and I say this with real respect for everyone involved: the community and the Israeli diplomatic mission are not the same thing. Their goals overlap a lot of the time, but they’re not identical, and every now and then they’ll pull in slightly different directions. The embassy and the consulates represent the State of Israel — they’re pursuing Israeli foreign policy. CONIB represents Brazilian Jews. Its mandate comes from its own bylaws, from its member organizations — not from any foreign government. That’s just structurally true.

So in practice, you can’t expect CONIB to always carry water for Israeli foreign policy. That’s not really its job. Its job — first and foremost — is protecting the rights, the security, the interests of Jews who live here, in Brazil. Which means most of what it actually does day to day is about things like combating antisemitism, defending civil rights, building interfaith relationships, working through the legal system when it needs to.

And honestly, I’ve seen this cause friction. I’ve talked to diplomats over the years who seemed almost frustrated that the community wasn’t more… vocal, more activist, more willing to publicly champion Israeli positions the way they might have hoped. And I understand the impulse, but I think it misreads what CONIB actually is. It’s a Brazilian civil society organization. It’s not an arm of Israeli diplomacy, and treating it that way — even unintentionally — puts an unfair weight on community leadership.

There’s also a more strategic point here that I think gets missed. Precisely *because* CONIB isn’t a state actor, its voice often lands with more credibility in Brazilian public opinion than an embassy statement would. If you turn the community into just a megaphone for foreign policy messaging, you actually erode that credibility over time. Suddenly their advocacy against antisemitism starts looking political rather than principled — and that helps nobody.

To do this well, honestly, these institutions have to hold onto their credibility as “Brazilian” civic actors first. That means grounding everything in democratic principles, in getting the facts right, in defending human dignity — full stop. And I’d say they’re at their most persuasive when they can hold two things at once: condemning antisemitism clearly, without minimizing Palestinian suffering; defending Israel’s right to security, without treating every single criticism as illegitimate; insisting that international humanitarian law protects civilians, without pretending terrorism isn’t real.

And then there’s pluralism — which people outside the community sometimes forget. Jewish life in Brazil isn’t one thing. You’ve got religious and secular voices, conservative and progressive, Zionist and non-Zionist. Brazilian decision-makers should really understand that. Representation is much more credible when it doesn’t pretend that diversity away, but instead builds consensus around the things that really do unite people — opposing antisemitism, protecting Jewish life, affirming Israel’s legitimacy, supporting peaceful coexistence.

So my bottom line is: this only works with real clarity, on every side. Israel’s interests and the Brazilian Jewish community’s interests overlap most of the time, but not always — there’ll be a UN vote, a diplomatic dispute, some domestic controversy where the two diverge a bit. And recognizing that isn’t weakness. It’s actually maturity. It means each institution stays inside its own lane, its own legal authority, its own mission — and it protects the community from being asked to shoulder risks that really belong to the state, not to them.

6. Finally, our last question — what would be a more effective long-term strategy for Israel?

So, if I had to sum it up: Israel really needs to move away from this pattern of episodic, personality-driven engagement — you know, betting everything on whoever happens to be close to power at a given moment — and build something more durable. Something institutional. I’d think about it as six pillars, really.

The first is political diversification. Israel needs real relationships across the whole democratic spectrum — not just with conservative and evangelical circles, which is where a lot of the energy has gone, but with centrists, social democrats, human rights people, environmental groups, universities, unions, younger political leaders coming up. And look, talking to someone doesn’t mean agreeing with them. It just means an entire constituency isn’t left getting all its information about Israel from people who are hostile to it.

Second pillar: institutional continuity. The engagement with Congress, with Itamaraty, with the ministries, the state governments, the regulators, civil society — that has to keep going no matter who’s sitting in the Presidency. Because if a relationship only exists because of personal chemistry with one particular figure, it’s incredibly fragile. The moment there’s an election, it can just evaporate.

Third,  substantive cooperation. And this is important: the whole relationship can’t just be about conflict, or religion, or defense. There’s real room for cooperation on water management, agriculture, health, climate adaptation, science, innovation, cybersecurity, education, disaster response. Things that actually show Brazilian society tangible value, not just headlines.

Fourth pillar is strategic communication. And specifically, in Portuguese. This is something people underestimate. You can’t just take a message built for an American or European audience, translate it, and expect it to land the same way here. Brazil has its own historical vocabulary, its own legal culture, its own preoccupations — with inequality, with sovereignty, with human rights. If you’re not speaking to that, you’re not really being heard.

Fifth, and I think this one is underappreciated, credible engagement with humanitarian law. Israel’s position actually gets stronger, not weaker, when it explains itself. How are security decisions reviewed? What legal standards apply? How is civilian harm investigated? How does accountability actually work? Just asserting “we have a right to self-defense” doesn’t cut it anymore, not in a public environment that’s this legalistic, this morally attentive.

And sixth, investment in knowledge networks. Academic exchanges, dialogue with legislators, journalist programs, institutional visits, research in Portuguese — all of that builds long-term interpretive capacity. And honestly, that’s the real goal: a country that’s understood is always going to have a more resilient relationship than a country that’s merely supported.

One more thing I’d add:  Israel needs to learn to tell the difference between reliable institutional partners and people who are just, let’s say, transiently enthusiastic. Expressions of affection are nice, they’re politically useful in the moment, but a real strategic partnership needs consistency, professional competence, actual social legitimacy and the willingness to stay in the room even when there’s disagreement.

And ultimately, I don’t think the goal should be getting unconditional alignment from Brazil. That’s not realistic, and frankly it goes against Brazil’s whole diplomatic tradition. The more realistic, more achievable goal is making sure Brazilian positions are informed, balanced, resistant to caricature and that the relationship itself is broad enough, deep enough, to survive ideological swings, diplomatic crises, changes of government. That, to me, is what a mature strategy actually looks like.