President Joe Biden has spent months characterizing his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro as a dangerous authoritarian and warning that he will attempt to steal his country’s next election. That rhetoric vanished when Biden was forced to coax Bolsonaro into attending a summit that threatened to end in embarrassment with his absence. The two presidents met at the Summit of the Americas for the first time for an awkward and delicate conversation.
Bolsonaro attends summit after all
President Bolsonaro was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and he waited as long as he possibly could before half-heartedly acknowledging Biden’s presidency.
The Brazilian president, who hopes to win reelection later this year, is hoping that Biden is only a temporary annoyance before Trump returns in 2024.
Biden is just as eager to get Bolsonaro out of the way; the White House has preemptively declared that Bolsonaro will try to steal the election like Trump supposedly did in 2020.
The two leaders exchanged pleasantries and complimented each other’s nations, though both worked some carefully worded rebukes into their remarks.
Biden praised Brazil’s environmental activism and the health of its democracy, both subjects on which he has accused Bolsonaro of undermining progress.
Bolsonaro criticized excessive COVID-19 lockdowns and referred to “ideological issues” that have at times disrupted relations between the United States and Brazil.
– Dear Mark Ruffles, calm dowm! I'm sure you have never read the Brazilian Constitution, but I can assure you it's nothing like the complicated Hulk scripts you have to memorize:"AHGFRR". Read it and you'll find out I'm not only respecting it, but protecting Brazil's rule of law. https://t.co/djBbccMAPX
— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) June 10, 2022
Relations still strained
Despite the compliments, observers doubt that the two presidents will have achieved anything of note in their brief meeting.
With each man biding his time until the other is gone, ties between the two countries will continue to be strained until someone gets voted out of office.
Despite past differences, Bolsonaro claimed that the meeting went well and he refrained from attacking his American counterpart after it concluded, instead devoting his attention to mocking celebrities and activists who were protesting his presence in Los Angeles.
He has previously accused Biden of meddling in Brazil’s politics and intruding on its sovereignty, and only a week before the meeting he joked about Biden’s age.
Along with other Latin American leaders, Bolsonaro had threatened to skip the summit, which would have been an embarrassing and deliberate slight to Biden’s international prestige.
Biden may despise his Brazilian counterpart, but for once he was forced to beg for his cooperation. Bolsonaro undoubtedly enjoyed that situation.
