Trump Praises Bolsonaro’s Efforts to Contain Fires in the Amazon

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of the United States, Donald Trump, praised on Tuesday, August 27th,  the efforts of Jair Bolsonaro to contain forest fires in the Amazon and praised the “great work” of the head of the Brazilian government.

“I have gotten to know President @jairbolsonaro well in our dealings with Brazil. He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil — Not easy. He and his country have the full and complete support of the USA!” wrote Trump on his Twitter account.

Trump voiced these comments after Bolsonaro said today that Brazil will accept the US$20 million aid offered by the G7 to fight forest fires if French President Emmanuel Macron retracts calling him a liar.

In a press conference, Bolsonaro denied that Brazil had rejected the economic aid offered by the world’s most industrialized countries, but made it conditional on Macron’s apology for having called him a liar.

The French president said on Friday that his country will not support the free trade agreement announced two months ago by the European Union and Mercosur on the grounds that Bolsonaro lied when he stated that Brazil would comply with all its environmental commitments, which, in his opinion, was called into question by the increase in fires in the Amazon.

On Monday, in an interview granted after the G7 summit in Biarritz (France), Macron said that at some point discussing the possibility of conferring an “international status” to the Amazon to prevent its destruction would be required.

The statement was construed in Brazil as a threat to the sovereignty of the Amazon countries over the world’s largest rainforest.

According to the Brazilian government, forest fires occur every year and the months of August and September are “critical” because of the drought affecting the Amazon, although the 2019 fires are the most numerous of the last seven years but far from the numbers recorded in the 2000s.