G20 leaders find themselves at the source of wealth in Italy and take an iconic photo: the plan is to join forces to win the pandemic. (credit: disclosure)
If Bolsonaro is a fan of the diary, his days in Italy, during the G-20 meeting, will see a private space full of frustrations. When following the agenda of presidents and prime ministers of the world’s most powerful economies, Brazil’s exodus was evident. This thermometer can be measured by the lack of interest of the foreign press in the head of the Republic of Brazil. Among the world’s top ten newspapers, Bolsonaro was mentioned only 12 times during the summit. Nine of them chronicle the attacks on journalists on the 31st, or Bolsonaro’s slip of changing the name of American climate actor, John Kerry, to actor and comedian Jim Carrey. The final balance was sad for a country that used to be in good contact, like Brazil. With only one formal meeting with another president during the three-day summit, Bolsonaro was left out of the informal talks and ostracized by the international community.
The reason for not having a relationship with Bolsonaro is closely related to former White House tenant Donald Trump. In the last two editions he attended, the president of Brazil has remained close to Trump’s agenda, in a sort of shield. “What we are seeing is that the distancing of Bolsonaro’s rhetoric from the reality of the country turns into a de facto distancing from other countries,” said Roberto Roma, professor of international relations at the University of California in Latin America. According to him, there is a kind of consensus in the international community about caution with the Brazilian president. “Especially after the UN speech, when the vaccine debate raged in the president.” On this occasion, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, encouraged the Brazilian President to get vaccinated. The next day, the British tabloids did not forgive the company chosen by the leader. For Professor Kai Inoue Lyman of the University of the South Pacific’s Institute of International Relations, the fear is not just in the UK. According to him, some countries, such as Germany, prefer to take the escape route to avoid the Brazilian. “It would be disastrous for the German president, for example, to see with Bolsonaro.”
world apart In his three official speeches, Bolsonaro’s speeches have been consistent with what he has preached in recent weeks, but they remain divorced from reality. He told the cameras that he was committed to conducting a voluntary vaccination of Brazilians against Covid, even though he had spread false information weeks ago by linking the immunizing agent to HIV. He also highlighted the increased investment by national and foreign companies in Brazil, in contrast to the direct Treasury, which showed, in September, the business community’s fear of long-term investment and advances only in speculative capital. Off camera, attack on Petrobras. In his private conversations, he would say that the state-owned company is a “problem” which indicates its false privatization plan.
And if a brilliant understanding of reality isn’t enough, Bolsonaro also needs to talk about the future. On Tuesday, he and 19 other leaders signed an agreement with the three pillars of the fight against the pandemic and the economy. The first relates to distributing the vaccine and encouraging its application (the president claims he did not take the vaccine); Forest protection (in 12 months, 10,851 square kilometers of forest were deforested, the highest rate since 2009); Finally, Economic Maintenance and Recovery, and Gender Equality Assessment (in the month he legally forbids the distribution of tampons to vulnerable women and has already warned he would veto a bill requiring equal pay for men and women). More contradictions for Brazilians to hear, absorb, justify, criticize, overcome and wait for the next one.
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