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Brazil's President-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, attends a joint declaration with the Brazilian President after a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Brasilia, Brazil on Wednesday, November 7, 2018. (AP Photo / Eraldo Peres)
SAO PAULO – President-elect Jair Bolsonaro announced Wednesday that he was appointing an admirer of US President Donald Trump as Brazil's foreign minister in the new administration.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician who took office on 1 January, went on Twitter to announce the choice of diplomat Ernesto Araujo.
Araujo is now the head of the Department of American, Canadian and Inter-American Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is anti-left and is a self-proclaimed nationalist. He campaigned for Bolsonaro, elected on October 28th.
"Brazil's foreign policy must be part of the recovery moment that Brazil is currently experiencing," said the president-elect of his term.
Araujo praised Trump's approach to external relations, saying the US leader was proposing a vision of the West based on the recovery of his symbolic past. The Brazilian diplomat also believes that globalism is an anti-Christian ideology.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and long-time congressman, has repeatedly likened himself to Trump, although many analysts say his tough positions against crime and guns look alike. more than those of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Some diplomats were surprised by the appointment of Araujo as he has never been in charge of an embassy during his 29 years of diplomatic service.
Bolsonaro's aggressive rhetoric has already caused tensions with Egypt and Cuba, issues on which Araujo will once deal with power.
The Arab nation has canceled a trip by Brazilian lawmakers this year after the president-elect pledged to move the Brazilian embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Bolsonaro said later that the decision had not been made.
Cuba announced Wednesday the end of a program that had sent nearly 9,000 doctors to Brazil, after Bolsonaro said the program could only continue under new conditions. Among other things, he said that doctors should receive their salaries directly from Brazil and not from the Cuban government and be allowed to take their families with them during their missions.
Bolsonaro will also begin his government with friction with China, which has invested billions of dollars in energy, infrastructure and oil projects in Brazil. During the campaign, he complained: "The Chinese do not buy in Brazil, they buy Brazil itself."
In a recent editorial in China Daily, the Chinese government warned Bolsonaro against aggressive statements against China, saying they could cause problems in Brazil. Shortly after, the Chinese Ambassador to Brasilia visited Bolsonaro.
