An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis
https://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global-memos/us-capitol-breach-was-shot-heard-round-world
For Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, Trump’s defeat has been an unmitigated disaster. Trump’s rise to power in 2016 not only legitimized Bolsonaro’s uncouth and aggressive presidential candidacy two years later. More importantly, Trump’s unpredictable and destabilizing foreign policy absorbed so much of the world’s attention that there was limited notice of the cost of Brazil’s radical foreign policy, which involved frequent verbal attacks against Argentina, China, France, Germany, the United Nations, and so on, though such actions are highly popular among Bolsonaro’s loyal base. Although Bolsonaro was able to swim in Trump’s slipstream over the past two years, the economic and strategic cost of Brazil’s anti-globalist foreign policy is set to increase markedly once Biden occupies the White House.
Those in Brazil who had hoped that Trump’s loss would convince Bolsonaro to embrace a more pragmatic style saw their hopes dashed within days of the presidential election in November, when Bolsonaro toed Trump’s line and mentioned alleged voter fraud in the United States. The Brazilian foreign minister, an ardent Trump fan who described the U.S. president as the “savior of the West,” refused to discuss how Brazil should adapt to a post-Trump world.
Bolsonaro became the last democratically elected president to congratulate Biden and continued to speak about fraud in the U.S. election—a move many saw as the beginning of a campaign to reduce public confidence in Brazil’s own electoral system. Many analysts now believe Bolsonaro would not accept defeat in the 2022 election—with the worrisome difference that, contrary to the U.S. armed forces, Brazil’s generals have a far more ambiguous stance vis-à-vis democracy.
Bolsonaro’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the invasion of the U.S. Capitol—and his foreign minister’s decision to call the invaders “good people”—not only sets the tone for the coming years of Brazil’s foreign policy, it also lays out the roadmap for the country’s domestic politics for the next two years. For the Biden administration, Bolsonaro presents a dilemma. On the one hand, the fight against climate change—a critical pillar of the new Biden administration—is incomplete without the active contribution of Brazil, and the Brazilian government could, in theory, be a partner in limiting Chinese influence in Latin America. Yet, Bolsonaro’s commitment to projecting himself as the defender of Trumpism, as well as the many conspiracy theories associated with far-right wing groups in the United States, will make it hard to establish a productive working relationship between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest countries.
