Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro began his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today by announcing that Brazil feels “a sense of solidarity with Russia. We have good prospects for cooperation in various areas, specifically defense, oil and gas, and agriculture. Our government ministers are also holding meetings. I am confident that my visit to Moscow is a signal to the whole world that our bilateral relations have good prospects for growth…. We are ready for cooperation, and I would like to express confidence that this visit and our meeting will be quite productive.” Putin said the two countries, both of which are members of the BRICS economic bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are “working pro-actively at international venues,” and he remarked that Brazil is “the leading trade and economic partner of Russia in Latin America.”
The U.S. State Department was not amused. They had tried to get Bolsonaro—who is otherwise an economic liberal who does the bankers’ bidding—to cancel the planned trip to Russia. But when that didn’t work they gave him instructions that he should focus on reading Russia the Riot Act over Ukraine. An unnamed State Department official told the Miami Herald prior to the trip: “The United States and many other nations are deeply concerned about the destabilizing role that Russia is playing and its ongoing threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. As democratic leaders, the United States and Brazil have a responsibility to stand up for democratic principles and the rules-based order. We hope Brazil will take this opportunity to reinforce this message in their conversations in Moscow.”
With today’s developments, the State Department and its mouthpieces are demanding that there must be consequences for such insubordination. Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the historic bastion of Rockefeller business interests in the Americas, the Council of the Americas and a former State Department diplomat, told the Miami Herald that there should be consequences for ignoring Washington’s requests. “The question that Washington has to ask is, if we have made a request that’s ignored, what are we prepared to do to try to ensure that future requests are not ignored? … It’s not helpful to the international community to go over and land at least rhetorical support to a dictator who’s threatening his neighbors.”
