President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Sunday (17) that he can make a “hit and back” trip to participate in the next Mercosur summit, scheduled for Thursday (21), in Paraguay.
Last week, Bolsonaro had said he would not attend the meeting, which will be the first of the organization’s leaders since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020.
The president has now stated that he should hit the hammer on his departure this Monday (18). “It was 99% for me not to go, now it’s 50%,” he told reporters at the entrance to Palácio da Alvorada.
Bolsonaro said that they are trying to convince him to go to the meeting with “an avalanche of arguments” and that the “right” would be to leave Brasília at dawn and return at the end of the afternoon, but that “everything can change”.
“The obstacle is the problems they have to solve here. I’m inclined not to go, but I can go. I hope you don’t say ‘ah, it retreated’. Paraguay is one of the few countries in South America that is not yet red, and I have great regard for Marito,” he said, referring to the president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez.
He stated that he would like to travel to honor his Paraguayan colleague, who, like the Brazilian, also graduated as a military paratrooper. “This course [de paraquedista] unites us. The important thing about Marito is the relationship we have. We know the economic distance between us, but we live in perfect harmony. I really like Marito and I think the converse is true, and that’s good for him when he’s still there, right?”, he said.
Last week, Bolsonaro had said that he would no longer go to the meeting and that “in politics, you can always go back on some things”. “But my decision, so far, is not to go to Mercosur, despite Marito’s appeal,” Bolsonaro told reporters.
Mercosur is made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay — in addition to Venezuela, suspended by the bloc since 2017. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname are considered associated states, without voting power, in accession process.
Bolsonaro has lost allies in many of these countries due to changes of leaders in recent elections, which brought left-wing politicians to power. This was the case in Chile, with Gabriel Boric; from Peru, with Pedro Castillo; and Bolivia, with Luis Arce; in addition to the most recent episode, in Colombia, in which Gustavo Petro will assume the presidency in August.
On more than one occasion, the Brazilian government considered leaving Mercosur and, in 2019, right-wing leaders in the region created a new bloc, with political affinities, Prosul (Foro para o Progresso da América do Sul). Of the founding representatives, Sebastián Piñera (Chile), Martín Vizcarra (Peru) and Lenín Moreno (Ecuador) have already left power (Argentina), in addition to Iván Duque, who left the government of Colombia.
