Foreign Policy
The Primera Junta was concerned with the risk of Portuguese expansionism towards La Plata, either directly or through the Carlotist project. The diplomacy in Spain attempted to prevent the dispatch of a punitive army, limiting the armed conflicts to the royalists in Paraguay, the Upper Peru and the Banda Oriental. The Junta declared itself a natural ally of any city that revolts against the royalists; either those that did so in support of the May Revolution or those who revolted on their own (Chile, and Paraguay shortly after Belgrano's defeat).
Britain, allied with Spain in the Napoleonic Wars, stayed neutral in the conflicts between patriots and royalists. Nevertheless, the British policy towards the conflict was to favour British trade as long as it did not conflict with the neutral policy.
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Famous quotes containing the words foreign policy, foreign and/or policy:
“We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all.”
—A.J.P. (Alan John Percivale)
“I have been told lately that Fuseli was travelling by coach and a gentleman opposite him said: “I understand, Mr. Fuseli, that you are a painter; it may interest you to know that I have a daughter who paints on velvet.”
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—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)