Rio de Janeiro, November 29 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton met Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday to discuss regional security issues and build on the ideological affinity between the two leaders.
According to Reuters, the meeting was attended by Bolsonaro’s future national security adviser General Augusto Heleno and future defense minister General Fernando Azevedo, both retired Army officers, and incoming foreign minister Ernesto Araujo, an anti-globalist who believes climate change theory is a Marxist invention.
Bolsonaro has threatened to follow Trump’s lead and pull Brazil out of the Paris climate agreement, despite having the world’s biggest rain forest in the Amazon.
On Wednesday, he said he pushed the government to withdraw Brazil’s offer to host the U.N. climate conference next year, maintaining that Brazil’s sovereignty over the Amazon was at stake.
Bolton is expected to seek Brazilian support to apply pressure to Venezuela’s government, and other progressive governments like those of Cuba and Nicaragua.
In another step following Trump, Bolsonaro plans to move the Brazilian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, despite angering Arab countries that are big buyers of Brazilian meat.