By Arkady Petrov
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Diplomat Nestor Forster was among those promoted to the highest career level, on a list signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty) on Wednesday, June 12th. The diplomat has been the top candidate for the Brazilian Embassy in the U.S. since January, according to O Estado de S. Paulo, and the promotion is regarded as the final step in paving the way for President Jair Bolsonaro to invite him to the position.
The ambassador’s seat has been vacant since June 3rd when diplomat Sérgio Amaral returned to Brazil.
Should he be asked to take over the embassy in Washington, Forster would still need the Senate’s approval. The list of promotions circulated today at Itamaraty and will be published in the Federal Gazette in the coming days.
Forster was in charge of introducing the current foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, to Olavo de Carvalho in a meeting at the writer’s house in Virginia, USA. Forster and Olavo de Carvalho, who became an ideologue of the Bolsonaro government, are long-term friends.
The diplomat also had a key role in organizing Bolsonaro’s agenda in Washington in March, when he met with U.S. president Donald Trump at the White House. He helped organize Bolsonaro’s meeting with conservative and right-wing thinkers, for instance.
At the president’s invitation, he attended a dinner with American intellectuals and sat next to deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the government’s foreign policy liaisons. After the presidential visit, Forster’s name as the country’s future ambassador to the United States grew in popularity.
He is a prominent staff member of the Brazilian embassy in the U.S. capital. He is currently among the embassy’s ministers-counselors, a position directly below the main post, and is responsible for administrative, migration and public diplomacy issues — such as relations with civil society.
Forster’s proximity to the Bolsonaro government led him to attend meetings of government officials in Washington, DC. During Araujo’s last visit to the U.S. capital, the minister joined the Chancellor in meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.