Fran­cis­co Clementi­no San Tia­go Dan­tas (August 30, 1911 in Rio de Janeiro – Sep­tem­ber 6, 1964 in Rio de Janeiro) was a jour­nal­ist, lawyer, teacher and con­gress­man, as well as Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs dur­ing the pres­i­den­cy of João Goulart. He is con­sid­ered one of the fore­run­ners of the “Inde­pen­dent For­eign Pol­i­cy”, which sought to diver­si­fy Brazil’s inter­na­tion­al rela­tions and refused auto­mat­ic align­ments with any coun­try or bloc.

His con­cept of “Inde­pen­dent For­eign Pol­i­cy” was based on the fol­low­ing objec­tives: total involve­ment in the Latin Amer­i­can Free Trade Asso­ci­a­tion (LAFTA) and in the Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on Trade and Devel­op­ment (UNCTAD), with the aim of pro­tect­ing the price of com­modi­ties and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the growth of inter­na­tion­al trade; dis­ar­ma­ment and more peace­ful com­pet­i­tive coex­is­tence, as well as inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic coop­er­a­tion for the growth of under­de­vel­oped nations. The basic con­cept was that, whilst respect­ing the inter­na­tion­al norms of good prac­tice, Brazil should retain the right to nego­ti­ate with all coun­tries, in accor­dance with its own con­ven­tions.

In 1943, San Tia­go Dan­tas rep­re­sent­ed Brazil at the first Con­fer­ence of Min­is­ters of Edu­ca­tion in the Amer­i­can Republics, in Pana­ma. In 1951 he served as advis­er to the Brazil­ian Del­e­ga­tion to the 4th Con­sul­ta­tive Meet­ing of Amer­i­can Chief Min­is­ters in Wash­ing­ton. In 1952 he became a mem­ber of the Per­ma­nent Arbi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee in The Hague. Between 1955 and 1958, he chaired the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mit­tee of Jurists, based in Rio de Janeiro. As head of the news­pa­per Jor­nal do Comér­cio from 1957 to 1958, he devot­ed his edi­to­ri­als — known as the “Várias” — to mat­ters of for­eign pol­i­cy and in 1959 he assist­ed in the draft­ing and debat­ing of the San­ti­a­go do Chile Dec­la­ra­tion, one of the most impor­tant doc­u­ments of the Inter-Amer­i­can Sys­tem.