WASHINGTON (AFP) – United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week pays his first official visits to Brazil and Argentina, the State Department said on Friday, as he looks for common ground with the Latin American powers’ independent-minded leaders.
Blinken will hold talks with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia and President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires and also take part in a Group of 20 meeting of foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro where he could have rare in-person interaction with his Russian counterpart.
For the globe-trotting top US diplomat, it has been a striking absence to go more than three years into his tenure without visiting Brazil, the Western Hemisphere’s most populous country after the US.
But Brazil was led until early 2023 by far-right Jair Bolsonaro, one of the closest international allies of Donald Trump. Leftist icon Lula soon after returning to power last year headed to Washington for talks with President Joe Biden, with the two veteran politicians prioritising action on climate change, labour rights and democratic values at home.
Director Bruna Santos of the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute said the Biden team has come to understand from Lula’s first year that “they can be good friends, allies sometimes, but not allies at other times”.
Many Brazilians feel the Biden administration has less interest in Latin America, especially with its focus on Ukraine and the Middle East, she said.
“There is the sense that the relationship doesn’t live up to its potential and it’s not being treated as a priority,” she said.
Lula has sought to maintain dialogue with Maduro, while Milei, like Bolsonaro, has focused on pressuring the leader of Venezuela where an economic implosion has sent millions fleeing.
Brian Nichols, the top US diplomat for Latin America, said Blinken would raise “efforts to promote democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights” across the Western Hemisphere.
Brazil has “important ties and connections to the Maduro authorities and is able to deliver key messages to them”, Nichols told reporters.
Milei, who took office in December, has drawn parallels of his own to Trump with his abrasive style and anti-establishment comments and plans to come to Washington for a conservative convention alongside Trump days after seeing Blinken.
The Biden administration has nonetheless voiced a readiness to work with Milei, seeing the Argentine leader as idiosyncratic but tackling real economic concerns.
