Itamaraty boycotts Bolsonaro’s agenda with leaders to avoid embarrassment – 05/19/2023

The network of Brazilian diplomats abroad worked to try to prevent Brazil from being a target of embarrassment during the Jair Bolsonaro administration. High-ranking Itamaraty ambassadors emphasized that in the government’s four years, there was a deliberate measure to avoid scheduling meetings with foreign leaders during summits to which Bolsonaro was eventually invited, minimizing the risk of crisis and embarrassment.

This weekend, in Hiroshima, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will take advantage of the G7 summit to meet with the leaders of Germany, France, Indonesia, the International Monetary Fund, India, Australia, Vietnam and the United Nations, as well as the Japanese hosts.

In Bolsonaro’s case, Itamaraty’s internal order was to “contain the damage.” That is, not making an effort to request meetings with foreigners, when there is an event where several leaders are in the same place. Subsequently, these diplomats claimed internally that they had not received responses to the timid requests made.

On the outside side, requests for meetings with Bolsonaro have been rare, except in the case of far-right-led governments. The result: increased isolation and outcast status.

The scheme was different in the case of two-way flights, seen as having easier control and a detailed agenda. But when the platform was a dome, the fear was that succession of meetings would be a risk.

The first warning came when Bolsonaro, just weeks after taking office in 2019, traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos. At that moment, Itamaraty prepared an extensive program for the then president and managed to make Bolsonaro the central stage of the event. In a space where he had 40 minutes to speak, the Brazilian spoke for only six minutes.

But the biggest fear came when, in bilateral meetings, seasoned diplomats realized that Bolsonaro’s relationship with foreigners could open up potential crises or, at the very least, affect Brazil’s international image.

One of the episodes happened with Shinzo Abe, the then Japanese Prime Minister. In Davos, Bolsonaro made a comment to the Asian leader that he considered completely out of place about his ex-girlfriend of Japanese descent. For a few moments, a wary silence filled the room as the prime minister was given an interpretation. Abe laughed, to widespread relief among the diplomats. But the episode was seen as a yellow flag for what confrontations could be.

On other occasions, what caught the attention was the lack of subject matter between Bolsonaro and the foreign leader, especially when the meetings had no specific agenda. One of the moments of embarrassment was the dinner that Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted for the Brazilian, in 2019. Sources indicate that the two practically did not speak during the entire dinner.

As a result, Bolsonaro has repeated his meetings with the same foreign leaders whenever he travels to meetings such as the United Nations General Assembly or other forums.

The isolation was such that in 2021 at the G20 in Rome, Bolsonaro found himself facing leaders with whom he did not even exchange views on the international situation.