Difficult summit for Jair Bolsonaro | America - The latest news and information | '
It gets complicated for Brazil's president: It is the first meeting of heads of state of the 20 most important economies in the world, in which the right-wing populist, who has ruled for half a year, participates. But already in the preparations went a lot wrong: A Brazilian corporal in the vanguard of the government delegation was caught trying to smuggle 39 kilograms of cocaine from the government aircraft in Seville. The subsequent presidential race with Bolsonaro on board had to swerve into Lisbon on short notice as the first stopover to the G20 summit in Osaka. Then important ministers left the president in the lurch: Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo negotiated until yesterday in Brussels with the EU on a trade agreement with the Latin American group of countries Mercosur and flies directly from there to Brazil. Minister of Economic Affairs Paulo Guedes stays in Brasília to accompany the progress of the pension reform in Congress – it is considered the centerpiece of Bolsonaro's long overdue economic reforms. And then the latest economic forecasts from Latin America turned out to be surprisingly negative: Growth in the seven largest economies in the region shrank in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the previous three months. According to forecasts, gross domestic product will grow across continents this year by only one percent. Above all, the turbulence in the trade war between the US and China is having a negative impact on sentiment in Latin America.
Weakened Continent
This weakens the representatives of Latin America at the meeting in Osaka. Because in the G20 they usually have a big weight. With Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, Latin America is significantly more represented than it would actually be in terms of the region's share of world economic power. But now Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has canceled his participation. The Argentine Mauricio Macri and Bolsonaro will therefore represent the troubled continent alone.
On Bolsonaro wait complicated appointments: With Xi Jinping a meeting is agreed. In the election campaign Bolsonaro has constantly criticized China's oversized influence in Brazil. His foreign minister sees "Maoist China" as a great enemy of the Christian-conservative West. But now Bolsonaro wants to act as supplicant with Xi Jinping: China should import more high-quality products from Brazil instead of just soy and iron ore. China's head of state wants to know whether Brazil will involve telecommunications giant Huawei in the expansion of the 5G mobile network. Bolsonaro has no strategic starting position for the conversation with Xi Jinping.
Still soy is the main export article of Brazil to China. That wants to change Brazil's president.
He will meet the Chinese president again at the parallel BRICS meeting, ie the panel from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Another BRICS presidential meeting will be held in Brasília in November. So far Bolsonaro's government has not been able to hear what it wants to do in the club of key emerging economies.
Intensive one-on-one talks
The G20 summit will also feature one-on-one meetings with the heads of state of Japan, France, Singapore, India and Saudi Arabia. Chancellor Merkel wants to address Bolsonaro on the increasing rain forest deforestation. The President has already stated that he will not let Germany speak. "Germany can learn from us," he said in Osaka.
Politically sensitive is the meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, about the just added new evidence on his personal involvement in the murder of the anti-government journalist Jamal Khashoggi have emerged. The Arab world is one of the most important markets for Brazilian poultry and other Halal products. Against this background Bolsonaro wants to clear up the moods in the Brazilian-Saudi relationship, which had developed during Bolsonaro's visit to Israel shortly before the elections there. Among other things, Bolsonaro had announced at the time that he wanted to relocate the Brazilian embassy – modeled on the USA – from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Jair Bolsonaro, here on his arrival in Osaka, Japan, hopes not to be alone in the rain after his many one-on-one talks
On the positive side, Bolsonaro and Macri, as well as EU leaders at the summit, could be surprised by a coup: progress has been made in the negotiations between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) on a free trade area. Just in time for the Osaka summit, it could come to a conclusion of negotiations that have been going on for more than 20 years. That would be a huge success – for the EU Commission as well as for Mercosur. An agreement with the Mercosur states would not only be the most economically significant one that the Europeans have completed, given the 260 million consumers there. It would also be, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, "a very strong signal to the world" – in time for the G20 summit in Osaka, where the Europeans again with US President Donald Trump to a commitment to free trade and international trade rules to wrestle.
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