A Conferência do Rio de Janeiro e o Tratado Interamericano de Assistência Recíproca: Conflitos na construção do sistema interamericano

Abstract

This article focuses on the conflicts surrounding the approval of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (ITRA) at the conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 1947. We analyze the draft treaties sent to the Pan-American Union, which were mainly Brazilian, Mexican and from the United States; the preliminary votes taken before the Meeting in the aim of obtaining a consensus among the countries involved; as well as the final text of the ITRA. Our hypothesis is that the final version of the ITRA failed to materialize complete US control over the other members of the Pan-American Union, instead representing a solution reached by means of negotiation in a period of transition from a policy of good neighborliness to a doctrine for containing communism. This context allowed the member countries of the Pan-American Union to assert several of their proposals in spite of opposition from the United States, a situation unlikely to be repeated in the future, with the consolidation of the policy containing communism and US control over the Americas.