Brazil will send no delegate to Argentine president Fernandez inauguration, media reports

Monday, December 9th 2019 - 09:56 UTC

Full article 8 comments

The move comes after he decided that Citizenship Minister Osmar Terra will no longer represent Brazil at the event.

Terra had been preparing to meet with both Fernandez and outgoing President Mauricio Macri, as well as local business leaders.

Brazil’s government scrapped plans to send a delegate to Alberto Fernandez’s inauguration ceremony in Argentina, representing an escalation in tensions between South America’s top economies.

President Jair Bolsonaro has opted not to send anyone to the Dec. 10 swearing-in ceremony in Buenos Aires, according to a Brazilian official. The move comes after he decided that Citizenship Minister Osmar Terra will no longer represent Brazil at the event.

Relations between Brazil and Argentina, which are traditionally political and trade allies, have worsened in recent weeks amid an ideological clash between Fernandez’s left-wing movement and Bolsonaro’s hard-right administration. The spat has also raised prospects that Latin America’s largest economy may pull out of the Mercosur customs union - which counts Brazil and Argentina as its two largest members - if differences persist.

Hours after his election victory, Fernandez set the stage for the first diplomatic tiff between the two countries by calling for the release of Lula da Silva, a leftist icon and Bolsonaro adversary. Bolsonaro later said he wouldn’t call Fernandez to congratulate him and wouldn’t attend the Argentine presidential inauguration, marking the first time in recent history for a Brazilian head of state.

Newspaper Clarin reported earlier that Bolsonaro made his decision after he was annoyed by a Brazilian delegation led by lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia, which met Fernandez in Argentina last week. Bolsonaro was aware of the delegation’s travel plans, Clarin reported Maia as saying.

Categories: Politics, Argentina, Brazil, Latin America, Mercosur.

Tags: Alberto Fernandez, Argentina, Argentina president, Brazil, Fernandez inauguration, Jair Bolsonaro, Osmar Terra.

Top Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules

Enrique Massot
Tantrum-prone Jair Bolsonaro shows, once again, his little understanding of what it means to be president of a country like Brazil.

It won't be long before the two countries restart a relation on which both depend -- no matter the ideological differences.

Alberto Fernandez is a veteran negotiator who is light years ahead of his Brazilian counterpart, and he will make sure trade relations benefiting both countries take shape in the immediate future.
Dec 10th, 2019 - 01:52 am 0
Terence Hill
“Relations between Brazil and Argentina, ... have worsened in recent weeks”
Foreign relations are the art of finding common ground. This is solely at the behest of the US appointed Bolsonaro. As he makes Trump the Chump look like a Rhodes scholar, it's no surprise at all.
Dec 10th, 2019 - 10:30 am 0
pgerman
Finally, only the Heads of State of Paraguay, Uruguay and Cuba (only three) will go to the assumption of the new Peronist president. As we say in Argentina, “they left him alone from the beginning” to Alberto Fernandez. They clearly know who he is and nobody wants to be “stuck” to that disastrous image that Peronist presidents always give.
Dec 10th, 2019 - 01:20 pm 0

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