For Brazilians, President Rousseff Made the Right Decision in Delaying a State Visit to the U.S.
For Brazilians, President Rousseff Made the Right Decision in Delaying a State Visit to the U.S.
Despite President Dilma Rousseff’s delay of her state visit the momentum for better U.S.-Brazil relations may not be dissipated, comments AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth.
Brazilians tuning into the Globo Network’s Fantástico news show on successive Sunday nights this month were taken aback by allegations that the United States not only spied on their president but also was monitoring Petrobras, the state-run oil company.
The charges that the National Security Agency carried out cyber-espionage in President Dilma Rousseff’s office and kept track of her conversations with cabinet members raised nationalistic hackles in Brazil.
While Rousseff’s response — the postponement of a state visit to Washington scheduled for late October — was a setback in diplomatic relations between the hemisphere’s two largest democracies, the decision played well in Brazil....
When she welcomed President Obama to Brazil during his 2011 visit, she emphasized that any true alliance between the two countries needed to be “amongst equals.”
The Snowden revelations have set the U.S.-Brazil relationship back, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas and Americas Society.
“It was a significant slap in the face of the United States,’’ he said. But “it doesn’t mean the relationship is blown up. It does mean the momentum for a better relationship has dissipated....’’
