President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) received on Tuesday morning (24) the US government’s special envoy for the Summit of the Americas, Christopher Dodd, who proposed to the Brazilian leader a bilateral meeting with Joe Biden. It would be the first meeting between the two leaders.
The American government, which organizes this edition of the summit, is concerned about a possible depletion of the event, to be held in Los Angeles, at the beginning of June, and, therefore, sent an emissary to try to convince the Brazilian leader to attend the meeting. .
The meeting at the Planalto Palace lasted less than an hour. The purpose of the trip by Dodd, a former Democratic senator, was, more than just an invitation, to express the importance of the Brazilian government’s participation in the meeting, according to people involved in the preparations for the meeting.
The ninth edition of the Summit of the Americas was conceived by the US as a way of symbolizing the return of the country’s leadership under Biden in Latin American affairs. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the Republican missed the event in 2018, becoming the first American leader to neglect the meeting.
This year’s event could be deflated not only because Bolsonaro has signaled resistance to attending, but also because Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has indicated he may miss it.
So, before coming to Brazil, Dodd had a virtual meeting with Obrador to try to reverse the decision not to go to Los Angeles. For Americans, holding the meeting in the US without the leaders of the two largest economies in the region would be a diplomatic fiasco and would reinforce the image that Washington no longer has the leading role it once had. Obrador said last week he would only go to the summit if the US invites the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, dictatorships considered pariahs by Washington.
Although an invitation to authoritarian regimes is out of the question, interlocutors believe that the easing of sanctions and restrictions against Cuba and Venezuela, announced last week, were also signs by Biden to try to double the resistance of the Mexican leader.
The US announced the withdrawal of measures imposed during the Trump administration on remittances and travel to Cuba. In practice, the new provisions make it easier, among other things, to send dollars from Cubans living in the US to family members on the island. The easing of sanctions against the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro should allow state oil company PDVSA to carry out previously prohibited business.
A senior US government official interviewed by the AFP news agency said he hoped that one of the main consequences of the announcement would be the resumption of negotiations between Chavistas and members of the Venezuelan opposition in Mexico, under the mediation of Norway.
