Bolsonaro said he was “surprised” with the American president, whom he had met for the first time after waiting a year and a half.
Just two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “freezing” relations with Brazil, he claimed he was senile because the president ignored him at the G-20 meeting and repeated suspicions of election fraud that led to the Democrat’s appointment to the White House in 2020. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) left his first meeting with Biden excited by what he saw and heard.
Asked about his impressions right after the one-and-a-half-year-long conversation between the two, Bolsonaro said he was “surprised” and the dialogue was “sensational” and exceeded expectations.
This Friday morning (6/10), the president praised Biden once again, saying the speech was very candid, noting that they both sat “eye to eye” for a “candid” speech and less than a meter away for an “unmasked” conversation. . ” – It is against the rules published by the obligation of people who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 to wear masks that cover their faces.
Bolsonaro said, “100% so far. Even the conversation I had with Joe Biden yesterday was very good. We sat eye to eye and unmasked for 30 minutes, less than a meter away. And it was a pretty candid conversation.” said. .
The speech, which took place at 16:20 in Los Angeles on the sidelines of the 9th Americas Summit, hosted by the USA, started with an atmosphere of obvious discomfort.
As Bolsonaro says, he used the opening 7 minutes to “give” Biden the reasons for political decisions or statements that the two leaders disagreed on.
Bolsonaro referred to Brazil’s “challenges” on its environmental agenda, but stressed that the Amazon was a “sovereignty” issue for the country, and affirmed that Brazil had “dependencies” on Russian fertilizers, despite not wanting a conflict in Ukraine. Citing his lack of overt criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he forced the country into a “balance position” and again said he wanted “voice elections”.
The Brazilian president has repeated the fraud accusations and said the results were not verifiable, but the Supreme Electoral Court denies it.
Biden heard everything move his hands, with ironic smiles and not making eye contact with his Brazilian colleague.
Image: ITAMARATY
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But, according to Bolsonaro’s aides, after the press left, the atmosphere became so friendly that the Brazilian president felt free to demand that a large part of each representative’s teams leave and that only diplomats and heads of diplomats leave. translators stay in the room.
According to reports from Brazilian officials, even the heads of the two presidents were brought together for the moment, revealing differences on difficult issues such as the election, which one Brazilian official described as “a very open exchange of ideas”. but without that it led to an escalation of tension.
According to one of Bolsonaro’s aides, it was as if the presidents at that moment considered themselves to be people with the same orbit – both politicians with decades of careers in their respective countries’ legislatures – and that perception “not only broke the ice, but warmed enough to make tea”.
The personal meeting was seen by the Brazilian government as a precondition for Bolsonaro’s participation in the Continental Summit; This was an event that American diplomacy saw as a priority in the face of international rivalries with China and tensions between Russia and the United States. .
Top Brazilian officials told BBC News Brazil privately that Bolsonaro would not have visited Putin in Moscow in February if Biden had not personally ignored him for so long.
For Bolsonaro, this event proved to be an important opportunity to counter criticism that the Brazilian president was isolated in the world, “outcast” as then-Chancellor Ernesto Araújo once said.
In addition to meeting with Biden, at the plenary sessions of the Summit, he took advantage of this opportunity and took the initiative of a first, more open meeting with Argentine President Alberto Fernández, whom he publicly criticized.
Just hours before this meeting in Los Angeles, Bolsonaro said that Argentina was reporting that “it has serious economic problems, there is a lack of diesel there right now. It may be because of Fernandez’s most left-wing policy.”
The meeting between the two Latin American leaders was rated as “surprisingly friendly” by people who witnessed the scene.
Bolsonaro is also said to have hugged and laughed at Peruvian President Pedro Castillo and was even “repressed” by the Guatemalan Foreign Affairs official.
This Friday, Bolsonaro will continue bilateral talks with Colombia’s Ivan Duque and Ecuador’s Guillermo Lasso. Brazilian diplomacy reportedly turned down a request to meet with Canadian leader Justin Trudeau due to scheduling conflicts.
Despite the excitement, Bolsonaro turned down a dinner yesterday hosted by Biden in Los Angeles for the leaders.
According to one of the Brazilian officials, “this kind of party is not the president’s style”. Bolsonaro ate dinner in his room and went to bed early.
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source: Noticias
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