President Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will announce three agreements during her visit to Washington this week, including a long-stalled accord to deepen defense cooperation between the two countries.
U.S. officials would not confirm specific agreements the two presidents would conclude during the visit, but Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said there also would be agreements on taxes and keeping each others’ secrets — a result of the scandal which led to Rousseff’s visit being postponed for two years. Brazil’s Congress ratified the three agreements last week.
The visit is seen as an important reset in the relationship, which had been strained by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s accusations that U.S. spies were monitoring Rousseff’s communications and those of the state-controlled oil company Petrobras. It was also harmed by the perception that, in spite of deep interactions in business, trade, culture, tourism and other areas, Latin America’s largest country was being neglected by the Obama administration.
“I think this visit from President Rousseff signals the fact that we are moving forward in terms of our positive engagement with Brazil, and we’ll be able to tackle I think a range of issues that are important to both of our countries,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters Thursday.
The defense agreement, which has languished since it was signed in April 2010, would promote joint military training and exercises, cooperation in research and development, mutual logistics support and acquisition of defense goods from each other’s companies. It would be the first since a Cold War-era agreement ended in 1977 during Brazil’s military dictatorship. The tax treaty, signed in 2014, would facilitate the exchange of financial information to ensure compliance with each nation’s tax laws. Brazil’s Senate on Thursday approved the agreements.
Rousseff arrives in Washington on Monday and is set to have a working dinner with Obama at the White House. The two leaders will hold more meetings Tuesday, along with a joint news conference.
Separately, Brazilian Defense Minister Jaques Wagner, who departed Thursday for Washington, is set to meet Defense Secretary Ashton Carter at the Pentagon on Monday.
