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Latin American The research topic that was reviewed covers the geographical situations and locational importance of Brazil. The research topic was primarily focused on the importance of Brazil amongst the Latin American nations. The authors have used the past of this country to help us understand better, what and how it progressed. The authors’ research and the conclusions drawn can be reviewed in the text below. The articles that were reviewed possessed a greater sense of how Brazil’s situation of being an outcast country changed over the years and how the political views and benefits has helped in changing its position. It also sheds light on how cold war changed its situation clearly weighing the fact that Brazil on the other hand had its own political motives that were inclined towards being connected to the European side rather than the American one (Bethell, 2010). Further down the road focuses on how Brazil had once a different operating policy that isolated itself and once it realized its importance in the Latin American region, it has since then focused on its growth to be higher form of success. This has greatly brought out a huge development and super strong economy within the country. In short, a country, which once did not depend and paid attention to its Latin American connection, now clearly understands and profits from it. But before getting into the details of how Brazil was identified and welcome into the Latin America family, it is important to get familiar with the country’s geographic properties. Geographically and in terms of organization systems, Brazil is a part of Latin America but the primary language spoken there is Portuguese (Teixeira, 2012). The country has seen a time of great political instability and also a military takeover. But all of this came to a steady democracy in 1985 and has been like that since then (Bethell, 2010). The country is remarkably diverse in terms of its geography with beaches and forests spread over for large miles. All of this may make it similar to its sister Latin American countries but no matter what; none can ignore the differences between the whole Latin American region and Brazil itself. Even today, many differ in their opinions of how Brazil is supposedly to be a part of the Latin America since there are so many differences even till this date (Teixeira, 2012). In light of the articles reviewed, Brazil was not included in the term America Latina when it came into existence in the nineteenth century. Brazil was not given the proper consideration because everybody in power at that time considered Brazil as a socio-economic different state. The acceptance began after World War II ended. The Cold War persuaded the United Sates to form a strategy to ensure its dominance. All the countries that were at the south of Rio Grande were grouped in to a single region that was named as Latin America. This coalition turned out to be a big step in the recognition of Brazil as it wasn’t included in this group (Teixeira, 2012). This topic was however not really taken upfront. Until a few intellectuals seriously took this fact and tried to push forward the idea, what that the role of Brazil in Latin America was not and what it should be. Brazil however maintained an official statement that it did not have any interest in Latin America but in the other hand, its relations with the US continued to deteriorate (Bethell, 2010). Brazil had always focused on its European relations and never gave serious credibility to the thought of focusing on in-house relations, which mean moving towards the United States and getting deep with the Latin American region. In the recent years, Brazil has however, focused on developing major relations with the United States and the rest of the world. Brazil was more in control and aware of its importance in the region than just being an ally for the US. As the time passed and continually, Brazil has been involved in expanding its impact within and even outside Latin America. Its foreign policy has major differences with the ever dominant United States and also there are many differences of opinions in matters of security too. It has focused on employing better relations with the neighboring countries (Teixeira, 2012). Inside Latin America, Brazil has risen to a height of great political importance where it is involved in influencing the political scenarios and turns them for its own benefit. So much for a once neglected country, Brazil has truly understood its regional importance and can be labeled as one of those countries who have actually turned those factors in their own favor. Though some factors have put a serious conflict of interest between Brazil and the United Sates, things have been working out themselves along the way. The huge extension in Brazil’s foreign policy came in the other half of the twentieth century. It focused on maintaining its previously successful ties with the European countries. It is because Brazil’s majority trade is concerned with Europe and the country actually thrives on it. This however changed from being exclusive to Europe to being more involved with the Latin American region in terms of trade (Bethell, 2010). The country’s fiscal policy has also been going through a lot of developments in the past years and therefore this is the reason why the economy is getting better. The concentration on public spending has improved greatly. The government in 1960s in Brazil effectively focused on removing any bitterness that may have been in between Brazil and rest of the Latin American region and clearly spread around the message that the economic and political partners of Brazil were the countries of its very own continent. Brazil has raised its trade profits from $1.7 billion to $16 billon by the end of 2007. This happened by the country’s great and successful policies that focused on new markets in the outer regions of the Latin America. Brazil’s foreign policy however is strong enough but even power has its limits. With US being on the top of all of it, there have been many alterations in the century’s foreign policy of Brazil. That was the reason and this is now the actual motivation why Brazil has focused so intensively on maintaining its relations with the Latin America (Teixeira, 2012). Here this needs to be taken in mind that in the last ten years, Brazil has become a role model for sustainable and consistent advancement in its economy. The government has done huge investment in the health department that has resulted in decreasing poverty. This has been backed by the investment in agriculture (Bethell, 2010). This has been a result of greater and successful relations of Brazil with the outside countries. Brazil has focused on its exports that include iron ore, sugar, coffee etc. and also the domestic economy benefited from Brazil’s promising foreign policy. But this was a result of huge and long term planning; this was years of planning and investment. Brazil was practically vaccinated more than enough during the 2008 financial crises. The country had more than enough backup plans to get back on its feet and protect itself in the first place.