Politics

Balancing extremism and diplomacy: Mr. Bolsonaro in Washington

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President Jair Bolsonaro arrives in Washington D.C.

In what was the first main event in Jair Bolsonaro’s long-awaited trip to the U.S. to meet with Donald Trump, the Brazilian president attended a dinner held at the Washington home of Sérgio Amaral, the Brazilian ambassador to the U.S. The guest of honor, however, was not Mr. Bolsonaro—rather it was his ideological guru, the self-titled philosopher Olavo de Carvalho.

After the meal, Jair Bolsonaro called a toast to Mr. Carvalho, at which moment Paulo Guedes, the Economy Minister, lauded the ideologue as being “the leader of a revolution” in Brazil. Revolutionary would be one way of describing Olavo de Carvalho, a man who believes that fossil fuels “don’t exist,” and that Pepsi Cola is sweetened with the cells of aborted fetuses.

Sunday’s dinner was a faithful illustration of the constant tug of war within a government which is held together by a paper-thin alliance of competing forces. On one side we have the military wing, which surrounded the Jair Bolsonaro campaign as it began to gain steam; on the other, the ideological core, backed up by Olavo de Carvalho and his anti-globalist disciples, the best examples of which being Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araújo.

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Steve Bannon and Olavo de Carvalho. Photo: Twitter

In the middle, there is the economic team led...

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