U. S. President Donald Trump and Brazil
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U. S. President Donald Trump and Brazil’s new far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro forged a bond over their shared brand of conservative and populist politics on Tuesday, with Trump pledging to give more U. S. support to Brazil’s global ambitions.
In a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said he told Bolsonaro he would designate Brazil a major non-NATO ally and possibly go further by supporting a campaign to make Brazil “maybe a NATO ally.”
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who rode to the presidency with a brash, anti-establishment campaign modeled on Trump’s 2016 run, has declared himself an unabashed admirer of the U. S. president and the American way of life.
He praised Trump for changing the United States in a way he said he hopes to change Brazil.
“Brazil and the United States are tied by the guarantee of liberty, respect for the traditional family, the fear of God our creator, against gender identity, political correctness and fake news,” Bolsonaro said, touching on themes that have inflamed his critics in Brazil concerned about his autocratic views.
Nicknamed the ‘Trump of the Tropics,’ Bolsonaro rose to power praising the U. S.-backed military government that ran Brazil for two decades before a return to democracy in 1985.
He moved quickly to ally Brazil closer to the United States, a shift in diplomatic priorities after over a decade of leftist party rule that had seen Brazil forging closer ties with regional allies.
At Tuesday’s news conference, the two presidents repeatedly rejected socialism, celebrating their joint efforts to oust Venezuela’s left-wing leader, Nicolas Maduro.
