RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, Nestor Forster, has bet on approaching state governments and entities in the United States in a strategy to improve dialogue and divert the pressure that Brazil has suffered in the US Congress. Several congress members have strongly criticized Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and asked for cooling the relationship between the two countries.
In the last months of 2021, Forster made at least four trips. The diplomat has alternated going to states governed by Democrats (such as Connecticut and North Carolina) with areas under Republican command (South Carolina and Georgia). It is in the latter that he has obtained more results.
For example, in South Carolina, the ambassador signed a memorandum of understanding to expand trade and the exchange of investments between the state and Brazil in late October -in 2020, negotiations between the two moved US$910 million. It was the first such term ever closed with a subnational US entity. “We will continue to work together on trade and investment and strengthen our partnership,” said Republican Governor Henry McMaster upon signing the document.
A critic of President Joe Biden, McMaster has been fighting the mandatory vaccination mandates imposed by the White House to control the coronavirus pandemic. South Carolina was one of the states that sued the federal government and succeeded in barring the requirement in court.
“We are shocked at the excesses of the Biden administration. I have never seen a president act beyond the law like this one. No South Carolina resident should have to choose between their job and a Covid-19 vaccine,” the governor said in November. He also signed a decree prohibiting state agencies from requiring employees to be vaccinated.
The Republican also positions himself as a defender of conservative agendas. He publicly asked the state superintendent of education to investigate reports of books with “obscene excerpts” in public school libraries; as an example, he cited complaints from parents about the work “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, a comic book about gender transition. He also advocates that the Supreme Court overturns abortion rights.
In neighboring Georgia, whose government also sued the White House to suspend vaccine requirements, Forster met with representatives of the state departments of Agriculture and Development in early November.
Pat Wilson, commissioner of the Department of Economic Development, told the Newspaper Folha that he was honored by the ambassador’s visit. According to him, the state’s relationship with Brazil goes back a long way, as Georgia has had an office in São Paulo for 25 years. “A large number of Brazilian companies employ thousands of Georgians. Businesses from Taurus [arms manufacturer], Guidoni [ornamental rock extraction], and Embraer [aviation] have become an important part of our community,” he said.
In states under Democratic command, such as North Carolina and Connecticut, the ambassador’s agenda focused on visiting factories -such as Gerdau’s- universities and local research centers. “Like Brazil, the USA is a complex country with great regional diversity, and it is important that the embassy seeks to expand its presence in local communities,” said Forster.
The visits are part of a plan to expand Brazil’s interlocution with American states and seek more partners outside Washington. The determination was encouraged by Bolsonaro, who, before the pandemic, also made visits to the US in cities away from the capital.
The president was in Florida in 2020 and a year earlier went to Texas -on this last trip, to receive an award that was initially to be presented in New York but had the ceremony changed after public pressure from Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio so that Bolsonaro would not go to the city. The moves also sought to strengthen the alignment with former President Donald Trump; the Brazilian openly campaigned for the re-election of the Republican, who Biden defeated in November 2020.
For Fernanda Magnotta, a researcher at Cebri (Brazilian Center for International Relations), Forster’s actions may be part of a new global scenario in which local leaders expand their international activities and respond to the recent actions of Brazilian governors. “They have taken the lead in importing vaccines and seeking a leading role in agendas such as the environment. In Glasgow [at COP26], the Brazilian delegation and representatives of the states were often dissonant,” she evaluates.
Embassy officials also hope that the state trips will help strengthen relations with American congress members. Forster had recent meetings with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Congressman Bill Keating of Massachusetts.
The Brazilian government has been the target of intense criticism in the US Congress. Since September, Democratic names on Capitol Hill have sent at least three letters to the Biden administration, asking for a distancing in the relationship between the two countries. In the most recent, in early December, eight Democratic senators called for a diplomatic “reset” and accused Bolsonaro of being responsible for the rise in deforestation in Brazil and for threatening democracy in the country.
As Folha shows, the texts are inserted in a context of pressure from activists and progressive groups of the American president’s party.
The ambassador responded to critics of the Brazilian government, also with letters, in which he defended Bolsonaro’s actions and even said that American congress members were ill-informed.