This paper analyses aspects of the US and Brazilian foreign policy. Some events relate actions linked to the political realism school and others embraced in the interdependence and globalization views. This paper explores the historical environment where the United States and Brazil followed different paradigmatic political approaches to gain access to the hemispheric market. Defence policies evolved gradually from realism into interdependence and gradually into the globalization approach. This last view gained momentum in American, while Brazil encouraged other IR views like militarisms and the sphere of influence to gain pre-eminence in the neighbour trading countries, favouring market access to multinational corporations and increasing direct foreign investment within the region.