{"id":927,"date":"2020-06-17T15:29:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T15:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/?p=927"},"modified":"2020-06-17T15:29:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T15:29:57","slug":"week-16-trump-bolsonaro-and-brazil-us-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/en\/week-16-trump-bolsonaro-and-brazil-us-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 16 – Trump, Bolsonaro, and Brazil-US Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Trump and Bolsonaro during the latter’s visit to the United States<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bolsonaro during visit to Taiwan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, was elected on a wave of discontentment with Brazil\u2019s traditional politicians. A stumbling economy, rising crime rates, and huge corruption scandals served to diminish confidence in traditional parties, such as the PT and the PSDB. Bolsonaro stitched together a coalition of supporters including Evangelical Christians, the country\u2019s politically powerful agribusiness magnates, and the military, in addition to previously undecided middle-class voters. Even before being elected, it was clear that his foreign policies would be driven by ideology more than by pragmatism. On the campaign trail, his criticisms of Venezuela as a Marxist threat to Brazil was the kind of heavily ideological claim that marked his strategy. His choice of Ernesto Ara\u00fajo to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs reflects his links to a fringe movement of writers, led by Olavo de Carvalho, who decry globalism, \u201ccultural marxism\u201d, and \u201cclimatism\u201d. Bolsonaro constantly praised Trump and his handling of U.S. affairs, and from day one pursued better relations with Washington. Trump has praised Bolsonaro and found an ally in Latin America willing to pursue the same far-right priorities in international relations. However, even if both countries would benefit from an increase a commercial partnership, they face significant political and pragmatic differences in pursuing it. These differences, in the form of trade barriers and other policies, have long prevented increased trade between both nations. Additionally, pragmatists inside the government have repeatedly stopped Bolsonaro from taking actions that would jeopardize Brazil\u2019s economy in favor of ideological bickering. For example, Brazil\u2019s proposal to move its embassy to Jerusalem would have harmed its significant exports of poultry to Middle Eastern countries. Bolsonaro\u2019s suggestion that Brazil let the United States build a military base on its territory was quickly denounced by top military officials. Additionally, several unnecessary conflicts have happened, such as fighting with France and Germany over deforestation in the Amazon, and ditching China, Brazil\u2019s largest economic partner, for a visit to Taiwan. Therefore, Bolsonaro\u2019s attempts to remake Brazilian foreign policy in his image have been significantly held back by the pragmatic economic interests that hold his coalition together. He has also been facing blows, such as Holland blocking the long-awaited EU-Mercosur trade deal over Brazil\u2019s destruction of the Amazon, and even Trump backpedaling on his promises for support to Brazil\u2019s candidacy to the OECD and imposing tariffs on Brazilian steel exports. It\u2019s clear that Brazil currently has a fragile standing in the global economy\u2014a standing which has informed the pragmatism of practically all presidential administrations since Geisel. Bolsonaro will likely keep attempting to pursue ideological avenues in his foreign relations, but he will be met by resistance from his own coalition, important trade partners, and even Trump, whose unpredictability and unloyalty to allies could turn against Brazil at any moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Articles <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Context of Bolsonaro’s rise to power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendy Hunter, Timothy J. Power, \u201cBolsonaro and Brazil\u2019s Illiberal Backlash\u201d | English<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro’s Foreign Policy, relationship with the U.S., Pragmatism and Ideology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Hakim, \u201cRemaking US-Brazil Relations: The Odyssey of Trump and Bolsonaro\u201d | English<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

News commentary on current Brazilian Foreign Policy:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guilherme Casar\u00f5es \u201cMaking sense of Bolsonaro\u2019s Foreign Policy at Year One\u201d | English<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ernesto Ara\u00fajo, Current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bloomberg open-ed:<\/strong> English<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, was elected on a wave of discontentment with Brazil\u2019s traditional politicians. A stumbling economy, rising crime rates, and huge corruption scandals served to diminish confidence in traditional parties, such as the PT and the PSDB. Bolsonaro stitched together a coalition of supporters including Evangelical Christians, the country\u2019s politically powerful agribusiness magnates, … Week 16 – Trump, Bolsonaro, and Brazil-US Relations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/openingthearchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}