After talking to Joe Biden in Los Angeles, California, on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) will cross the United States to find supporters and inaugurate this Saturday (11) a Brazilian vice consulate in Orlando, in Florida —one of his constituencies in the country.
Diplomatic representation is an old demand. Brazilians who live in the region today need to travel to Miami for assistance — by car, the journey takes at least four hours. Diplomats heard by the report emphasize that it is not common for a president to travel exclusively for the inauguration of a vice consulate, which has merely bureaucratic attributions.
When contacted, Itamaraty did not inform the amount invested for the new Orlando structure or how many employees it will have. The agency limited itself to sending a note in which it states that the representation will bring essential consular services closer to the citizens of Brazil — travel documents, civil records and powers of attorney.
“It will also increase the provision of emergency consular assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian tourists who visit the region every year,” reads an excerpt from the statement. The country has ten consulates-general in the US today, and the Itamaraty also did not say how much they cost the public coffers.
Florida, with several amusement parks, is one of the main tourist destinations in the US – about 800,000 Brazilian tourists visited Miami each year before the pandemic. In addition to travelers, the US state is increasingly attracting the diaspora to reside. There are already about 470 thousand, of which more than 180,000 live in the Orlando area.
A stronghold of Brazilians, the city is an important region for the political ambitions of the president, who this year will seek reelection. In 2018, Bolsonaro won 91% of the votes in Miami in the second round against Fernando Haddad (PT).
No wonder the president should take advantage of the trip to meet with supporters. The agenda coincides with the 1st Brazilian Conservative Congress in Florida, an event that will be attended by federal deputy Daniel Silveira (PTB-RJ), Bolsonarista blogger Allan dos Santos and Roberto Jefferson, president of the PTB.
Federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), son of the president, even recorded a video in support of the meeting, organized by the right-wing group Yes Brazil USA. Bolsonaro granted Silveira pardon after the deputy was sentenced to 8 years and 9 months in prison by the Federal Supreme Court – in addition to a fine and loss of political rights.
The president was also in Miami in March 2020. At the time, he also met with supporters and incited them against the Brazilian electoral system, saying, without evidence, that there was fraud in the 2018 election.
The president traveled to the US this week on Thursday (9), where he attended the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and had his first conversation with Democrat Joe Biden. At the end of the event, he would travel about 3,500 kilometers for the inauguration of the vice consulate which, in a first phase, will process life certificates, birth records, authorizations to return to Brazil and travel authorizations for minors, in addition to granting a passport.
The vice consulate must serve an audience equivalent to 40% of the Brazilian community in the state of Florida. It is estimated that the post, when fully operational, will produce around 9,000 passports and nearly 3,000 proxies per year.
Brazilians, however, will continue to be able to request any consular service from the Consulate General in Miami, which will also be responsible for the areas of commercial, cultural, science and technology promotion and academic cooperation.
The vice consulate in Orlando is the first of a package of five openings announced in January by Itamaraty. The other four offices are the consulates general in Marseille (France), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Chengdu (China) and the vice consulate in Cusco (Peru).
Despite the differences between Bolsonaro and Biden, toned down after the bilateral meeting on Thursday, relations between Brasilia and Washington have eased some tension. The US is Brazil’s second largest trading partner and the main source of direct investment in the country.
