Brazil as victim

Brazil's plight is singularly unfair. Its government, led by the stellar democrat Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in this first term undertook major and widely hailed free market reforms. He entered this month's election campaigning directly on these reforms and won clear-cut public approval for them. Meanwhile, however, although not through the slightest fault of his own, the Russian economy was collapsing. A long-distance contagion that nobody had anticipated suddenly drew in innocent Brazil, costing it billions at the hands of panicky investors and speculators.

The pains of austerity and the political conflicts exacerbated by his (economic) program are bound to tax Mr. Cardoso's political skills, his citizens's resilience and the unwieldy Brazilian political system as well. If Brazil were a lesser country, the United States might take the shock in stride. But it is one of the top 10 world economies and, as the largest Latin country, the one whose fate most impinges on the others, so its agonies cannot be put aside. It is chiefly responsible for its own rescue and regeneration.

It has the leadership and, its friends insist, the national courage for the job, barring a global meltdown. But the United States, as a leading lender and exporter and as a patron and major beneficiary of Latin America's overall stability, has its own interest in extending a helping hand to a country that got into its pickle to a considerable extent by taking American advice.

-- The Washington Post