Monday, November 04, 2019

Ideological Clash between Brazil and Argentina, with Trump Choosing Not to Side with Bolsonaro’s Conflict against Argentina


Ideological Clash between Brazil and Argentina, with Trump Choosing Not to Side with Bolsonaro’s Conflict against Argentina

By Julio Severo
“Alberto Fernández said Friday [November 1, 2019] that Trump has called to congratulate him on Sunday’s vote. In a statement, his press office said that Trump told him that he would do ‘a fantastic job,’ that he looked forward to meeting him soon and that his ‘victory’ had been talked about worldwide,” said the Associated Press.
The Buenos Aires Times said,
“Congratulations on the great victory. We watched it on television,” Trump said. “You will do a great job, and I hope to meet you soon. Your victory has been talked about all around the world.”
Trump addressed the IMF question during the phone call. “I’ve instructed my team at the IMF to work with you, so don’t hesitate to call me,” he said, assuring Fernández he’d delivered a directive ordering cooperation with Argentina.
“We congratulate the people of Argentina for holding successful presidential elections on October 27 and we are ready to work with Alberto Fernández as the new president of Argentina,” [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo said in a statement issued Monday after the election.
Trump, who is far away on the North, was able to congratulate Argentina. Yet, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was not able to give any congratulation, even though Brazil is Argentina’s neighbor.
Even Chile’s right-wing President Sebastián Piñera congratulated Fernández.
What led Bolsonaro to hostility against Fernández was the fact that the new Argentine president is socialist and close to the former Brazilian socialist President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Just hours before election results showed him winning Argentina’s presidential election on October 27, Fernández took to Twitter to wish a happy birthday to Lula. In the photo, Fernández made the “Free Lula” sign, a highly provocative gesture that seemed directed at Bolsonaro. In his victory speech that night, Fernández again called for Lula to go free. As punishment, Bolsonaro threatened to “exclude” Argentina from the Mercosur trade block and not to attend Fernández’s inauguration.
However, what is complicated for Bolsonaro is not complicated for Trump.
While Bolsonaro has made it clear that Argentina under the socialist Alberto Fernandez will have no congratulation or support from Brazil, Trump has done just the opposite: He has made it clear that Argentina will have both U.S. congratulation and support.
If Bolsonaro doesn’t want to congratulate the socialist president of Argentina, Trump does it!
If Bolsonaro doesn’t want to do business with socialist Argentina, Trump does it!
Trump’s clear message is that he is not part of Bolsonaro’s ideological war with Argentina. Trump is independent, just as Bolsonaro is independent. In fact, Bolsonaro has honored Steve Bannon, who has dishonored Trump. And Bolsonaro has antagonized Trump by visiting former U.S. President George W. Bush, who is not a Trump fan. So Bolsonaro has no right to complain about Trump antagonizing him.
The only important is business. With Argentine and Brazil. Regardless their ideological clashes. For Trump, business is above ideology.
Trump’s congratulation to the Argentine socialist president is a geopolitical and economic chess game. Trump seems to understand such chess. Bolsonaro does not.
As a conservative evangelical engaged for decades in the fight against socialism, I do not understand Bolsonaro, who has rejected Cuba and Venezuela, but he does not reject communist China. On the contrary, he visited China during the commemoration of the 70 years of its communist revolution that killed millions of Chinese. And he even called China a “capitalist nation.”
If Bolsonaro can do business with China, the largest communist nation in the world, with no concern for its human right violations against millions of Christians, why cannot he do business with socialist nations like Argentina and Venezuela, which are not so radical and violent against Christians as China is? Perhaps this is the lesson Trump is trying to teach Bolsonaro.
Argentina is seen by U.S. strategists as a deterrent against Brazilian geopolitical and economic ambitions in international affairs. This explains why socialist Argentina is ahead of Brazil in OECD, even though Bolsonaro made several compromises to have Trump approving Brazil for OECD in 2019.
If this is a geopolitical chess game played by Trump, who is correctly concerned only about making and keeping America great, Bolsonaro is playing astrological checkers under the guidance by Olavo de Carvalho, considered his Rasputin, who thinks that he is an expert on:
* Medicine: He has told that smoking does no harm.
* Education: He kept his own children away from school, but he never homeschooled them because he was busy involved in occultism and orgies. Two of his children are Muslims and one is a professional astrologer. Even so, he is behind of the appointment of the Brazilian Education Minister Abraham Weintraub, who wants more daycare centers than the former socialist administrations. The former Brazilian Education minister chosen by Carvalho was an admirer of Hillary Clinton and a Trump hater.
During many years Carvalho himself was a professional astrologer. As the old astrologers who advised kings, he is an “adviser” to Bolsonaro, just as Rasputin was to Russia’s right-wing tsar.
While Trump is playing chess, Bolsonaro is busy with his astrological checkers, betting luck with Brazil’s destiny.
Perhaps if Bolsonaro imitates Trump and expels his Rasputin, he may take correct decisions — including moving the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem — that will really let God make Brazil great.
With information from Associated Press, Washington Post, Buenos Aires Times, Americas Quarterly and Yahoo.
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