Gonzaga Debate Institute 13 Hegemony Core Brovero/Verney/Hurwitz

Hegemony Low – No Leverage

US has no leverage – Egypt proves

(Kenneth Weisbrode is a diplomatic historian at the European University Institute and author of "The Atlantic Century." 2-8-11, World Politics Review, “The U.S. and Egypt: The Limits of Hegemony,” http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7805/the-u-s-and-egypt-the-limits-of-hegemony, accessed 7-7-13, LLM)

Either Mubarak didn't get the message or Wisner delivered a somewhat different one. The diplomat waited in Cairo a day or two, then returned home while Mubarak continued to resist ever louder calls for his resignation. A few days later Wisner spoke publicly in favor of keeping Mubarak in place. Meanwhile Obama resorted to a long phone call and a subsequent public insistence that the Egyptian ruler begin a "transition," repeated several times over the course of the week.

This was not to be, either, at least not right away, raising the question: If the U.S. can't compel the leader of a country that is the second-largest recipient of direct assistance and whose welfare depends in so many ways directly upon the United States to do as it wishes, then who can it compel? What does this say about American power? Having graduated from the status of superpower to that of hyperpower, has the U.S. still not moved beyond the Gulliver stereotype of the 1960s?

U.S. losing influence and leverage, rising powers like Brazil prove

(Peter, October 22, 2012, Inter-American Dialogue, “Inter-American Discord: Brazil and the United States” http://www.thedialogue.org/page.cfm?pageID=32&pubID=3115, accessed 7-7-13, LLM)

At the 2005 summit meeting of hemispheric leaders, disagreements between the US and Brazil brought a halt to the faltering negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 2009, it was largely US-Brazilian differences that delayed resolution of the Honduran political impasse for almost a year. Later in 2009, Brazil galvanized opposition across South America to block a US-Colombian military accord. Today, the two countries remain at loggerheads over Cuba’s participation in hemispheric affairs, disagree on how to manage relations with Paraguay in the aftermath of the impeachment and ouster of President Lugo, and continue to have sharply diverging views on the appropriate roles of the Organization of American States and its Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

Brazilian and US leaders often publicly assert that their bilateral relationship is as good or better than it has ever been, and claim that it is continuing to improve. Although more commonly expressed by US officials, it is not unusual for each of the two governments to refer to the other as a global or regional partner—and to suggest that the two nations are working toward a more robust, even strategic relationship. Yet, despite the continuing rhetoric, neither country has done much in recent years to advance the development of deeper, more cooperative ties.

Relations are not getting worse, but they are not getting better either. The two countries are not cooperating more today than they were a dozen years ago—and their differences have extended to a wider range of issues. They certainly have not found many areas for collaboration. The agreements they have reached seem mostly to be insubstantial or peripheral to the relationship, or they have not been effectively implemented. They have not led to any particularly productive collaboration. On most fronts, relations seem to be drifting, propelled largely by inertia, without much direction or decision.

Even when the two nations have identified shared objectives that would advance the interests of both, they have rarely developed the cooperation needed to pursue them. The US and Brazil clearly have an array of common economic interests. Yet, they have not signed a single major economic pact in more than two decades—a period when Washington has reached free trade accords with some 20 countries worldwide, 11 in Latin America alone. In 2007, the two countries, which produce nearly 90 percent of the world’s ethanol, agreed to work together to establish world markets for the fuel and develop improved technologies for its production. But they have made little progress on either front.

More generally, as the world’s two largest agricultural exporters, Brazil and the US are well aware of how much they would gain by diminishing global trade barriers to food products. But they have never been able to collaborate effectively to achieve that goal. On the contrary, agricultural trade issues remain a source of bitter dispute between the two countries. Cooperation has been equally elusive and disappointing in many other areas of interest to both governments including, for example, nuclear nonproliferation, transnational drug and crime challenges, and climate change.