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The elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, attends a meeting with the elected governors in Brasilia, Brazil, on November 14, 2018. REUTERS / Adriano MachadoReuters
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday chose the supreme diplomat of conservative nationalism by US President Donald Trump, while exacerbating tensions with a medical aid program.
Career diplomat Ernesto Araujo, 51, chosen by Bolsonaro, pointed to Brazil's right-wing turnaround and the overthrow of nearly a decade and a half of diplomacy under left-wing Labor Party governments centered on alliances with South American allies and ideological partners, including Cuba.
"Brazil's foreign policy should be part of this moment of regeneration that Brazil is currently experiencing," Bolsonaro, a long-time Trump admirer, wrote on Twitter.
Another sign of the new direction of Brazilian foreign policy under Bolsonaro, the former captain of the army announced that he would grant asylum to any Cuban national who would request it. This occurred after Cuba announced that it would withdraw thousands of its doctors from Brazil after Bolsonaro questioned their training and demanded changes to their contracts.
Araujo, a career diplomat, is currently head of the United States and Canada Department of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Last year, he winced at the Foreign Ministry with an article claiming that Brazil had a chance of recovering its "Western soul" by adopting Trump's nationalism and pursuing its own interests instead of deceiving. be linked to country blocks.
The article titled "Trump and the West" drew the attention of Bolsonaro, who encouraged the middle-level diplomat to lead Itamaraty, as the Foreign Ministry calls it.
Araujo shares Bolsonaro's view of the need to rethink the membership of the Mercosur South American trade bloc, which he and other members of the president-elect's camp consider to be an impediment to the commercial interests of the president. Brazil.
In announcing the appointment with Araujo by his side, Bolsonaro said the diplomat's mission would be to promote trade with all nations without any left-wing ideological bias.
Araujo said he would ensure that the election of Bolsonaro brings to the Foreign Ministry a change of course that gives priority to Brazil: an effective policy based on the national interest, a political aiming for an active, happy and prosperous Brazil. "
In his article, Araujo claimed that, unlike European leaders, Trump was saving the Western Christian civilization from radical Islam and "globalist cultural marxism" by defending national identity, family values, and Christian faith.
Bolsonaro, who will take office on Jan. 1, is reconsidering some of his foreign policy positions, such as a copy of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Displacement. Embassy of Brazil in Israel in Jerusalem. The latter proposal has already established links with the Arab countries, which are interesting markets for Brazilian meat.
But he maintained his criticisms of a program that has brought 14,000 Cuban doctors to practice in poor and remote areas of Brazil, denouncing the conditions of "forced labor" under which the Communist-led Cuban government collects 75% of their wages.
Bolsonaro also insisted that Cuba allow families of doctors to join them in Brazil for the program to continue.
"Unfortunately, Cuba has not accepted," Bolsonaro said in a Twitter message announcing the end of the program, after the Cuban Ministry of Health announced that it was withdrawing its doctors from Brazil because of its criticism.
(Report by Anthony Boadle and Mateus Maia in Brasilia and Marc Frank in Havana, edited by Dan Grebler)
Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.
