The White House should send the secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland –a persistent critic of the Bolsonaro government- to be the representative of the US government at the inauguration of the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), on January 1st.
There was an expectation that the White House would send Vice President Kamala Harris to the ceremony as a sign of prestige. The US has been making many gestures of rapprochement with the new government, including the visit of national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to the president-elect earlier this month.
But, according to diplomatic sources, Haaland’s selection has strong symbolic value. She is the first indigenous woman to be a secretary (minister equivalent) in the US and plays a central role in implementing President Biden’s environmental and climate agenda.
As a deputy from the left wing of the Democratic Party, Haaland was one of the biggest critics of the Bolsonaro government and led several resolutions and letters in the US Congress pressuring the White House not to sign agreements with the Brazilian leader.
She participated in or spearheaded resolutions calling on the United States to cancel the designation of Brazil as a preferred extra-NATO ally, granted during the Trump administration, and to suspend all American military support to the Brazilian government, “unless the State Department is certain formally confirming that effective measures are being taken to prevent unjustified deaths by Brazilian security agents, to investigate and prosecute the deaths of activists, and to comply with international human rights standards”.
On the eve of Bolsonaro’s visit to Trump at the White House in March 2019, Haaland published an opinion article in the Washington Post with then-representative Joenia Wapichana (Rede-RR) saying that Bolsonaro and Trump were threats to the environment and land. indigenous.
In October 2020, Haaland and three other congressmen released a letter against the Technology Protection Agreement, signed by Bolsonaro and then-president Donald Trump in 2019, which provides for the use of the Alcântara base, in Maranhão, by the United States.
The text asked the US government not to participate in projects that put Brazilian quilombola communities at risk of “racist attacks and expropriations”.
And she, even when she was a deputy, managed to approve an amendment to the Defense budget to force the Trump administration to make a report on human rights in Brazil – the measure was sanctioned by the republican.
“We want the US to increase scrutiny regarding the disrespect for human rights in Brazil, especially in violations against indigenous peoples and Afro-Brazilians,” the congresswoman told Folha in May 2019.
In 2020, Haaland was also among the 22 Democratic deputies who signed a letter of solidarity to Talíria Petrone, federal deputy (PSOL-RJ), with criticism of Bolsonaro’s “anti-democratic and xenophobic” policies.
The name and rank of the person chosen by President Joe Biden to represent the US in Lula’s inauguration will be examined with a magnifying glass, in search of signs about the importance given by the Americans to the relationship with Brazil.
In 2015, then President Barack Obama sent Vice President Joe Biden to represent the US government at the inauguration of re-elected President Dilma Rousseff. At the time, the White House considered that it would be important to send the vice president because it was a time when relations between Brazil and the United States were still experiencing serious turmoil. At the end of 2013, the NSA scandal broke, with leaks revealing that the American national security agency had spied on President Dilma and Petrobras. This led Rousseff to cancel her state visit to the US in October 2013.
At Bolsonaro’s inauguration, the US sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – and had already sent the then National Security Advisor, John Bolton, to meet with the elected Bolsonaro.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
