MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's efforts to improve ties with the US, “need not worry China, we never had a problem with China”

“We never had an any issue with China. We had an issue with how Brazil itself was organizing, or not organizing, its relationship with Chin” said minister Araujo.

Brazil’s efforts to build better ties with the United States need not worry China, the South American economy top trade partner, because it had never had a problem with China, the Brazilian foreign minister stated. At issue in the past has been how previous Brazilian administrations handled relations with China, Ernesto Araujo said.

Speaking with reporters after a meeting with senior officials from China, Russia, India and South Africa during a BRICS meeting in Rio de Janeiro, he added that his country’s efforts to improve relations with the United States did not have to endanger links with China, the world’s No. 2 economy.

“We never had an any issue with China. We had an issue with how Brazil itself was organizing, or not organizing, its relationship with China,” he said.

Before becoming foreign minister, Araujo made a name for himself by writing a blog post in which he said climate change was a Marxist plot invented to stimulate the Chinese economy and harm the West. Since taking office, however, he and other members of the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, another longstanding China critic, have taken a more pragmatic attitude toward Beijing.

Separately, Araujo said that Brazil had formally sent off to the United States its request for President Jair Bolsonaro’s son, lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, to become Brazil’s ambassador in Washington.

“In accordance with diplomatic practice, we await the American response,” said Araujo. “But I am very sure that it will be granted by the U.S. government, and Eduardo Bolsonaro will be a great ambassador.”