President Trump has his share of populist admirers, including Brazil’s right-wing strongman Jair Bolsonaro. The pair recently took the opportunity to advance a long-standing defense partnership in Miami before dining together at Mar-a-Lago.
“This close relationship has deep historical roots,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Craig Faller, commander of U.S. Southern Command, after welcoming Bolsonaro and Brazilian Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva on Sunday in a ceremony at the command’s palm tree-lined entryway.
Space and cybersecurity are two of the emerging threat areas that will be addressed by the first-of-its-kind agreement in the region on defense research, development, technology, and tests between the two hemispheric militaries.
Bolsonaro is a strong gun rights advocate and former junior military officer whose base, like Trump’s, includes the military and evangelicals, said Riordan Roett, director emeritus of the Latin American Studies Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“The United States and Brazil have been talking about space for decades. They have had an off-and-on relationship,” said Roett, who indicated the two like-minded personalities engender the opportunity for strong ties. “Trump likes to receive and fête his equals at Mar-a-Lago as long as they have the right political persuasion.”
Brazil has been a key part of Southcom’s strategy of promoting hemispheric defense and security, cooperating in areas ranging from counternarcotics to regional military exercises.
Brazil hosted the U.S.’s longest-running multinational maritime exercise, UNITAS, in 2019 and participated in the first, held in 1960.
With the Brazilian economy still weak and Trump more concerned about his coming reelection bid, Roett sees more symbolism than substance in the visit, however.
“This command visit is an important symbol to the troops in Brazil that Bolsonaro is a respected hemispheric leader who is as much as home with the American army and troops as he is at home in Brazil,” Roett said of the Brazilian leader, a former junior military officer who has packed his cabinet with military men.
“It’s two strongmen, two personalities, sort of a kinship there,” he added. “Bolsonaro is a right-winger like Trump.”
