Background Details on Trump-Bolsonaro Dinner

The White House provides some background material on the purposes of the working dinner tonight between President Trump and President Bolsonaro of Brazil.

[White House Transcript] – […] SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you so much. So let me put this working dinner, which is what it’s going to be tonight, in context. Obviously, President Trump will welcome President Jair Bolsonaro to Mar-a-Lago for a working dinner, along with a group of advisors in this dinner.

To put it in kind of a greater context, you know, last year, we welcomed — President Trump welcomed President Bolsonaro to the White House for a working lunch at that time. And there’s a historic list of deliverables that was announced at that time, many of which have now been followed up upon in this new historic relationship that the United States has with Brazil and the historic relationship, frankly, that President Trump and President Bolsonaro have.

Last Monday, President Duque from Colombia visited the White House, had a working visit at the White House. Last year, as well, he did. You all would be remiss to find — and I don’t believe it’s ever happened in history, whereby two years in a row, the President of Colombia and the President of Brazil were invited to the White House or, in this case, the White House (inaudible) working dinner to have meetings with the President of the United States at this level, which goes to show, really, the historic — two things — the historic relationship that the United States currently has with both Colombia and Brazil. And also, one of the things that brings us together is the nature of the crisis in Venezuela and, really, the — as I said before in calls — the fact that President Trump has been really the first President since the Cold War to raise an issue in the Western Hemisphere as a national security priority, which is what we’re seeing with Venezuela, which is probably the worst humanitarian and security crisis the Western Hemisphere has faced in modern times.

So I think that goes to show that, all around, regionally, just in the last year and a half, the President has had 13 — 13 working visits with heads of state from the Western Hemisphere. That too is historic and unprecedented, which goes to show really the unprecedented engagement that President Trump has had toward the Western Hemisphere.

President Bolsonaro’s team will be following up with a visit to Washington, where more historic engagements will take place. We’ll be signing, with Brazil, and America Cresce energy and infrastructure finance framework during this visit that his team will then have to Washington. Brazil will be the eighth country with which we’ve signed one of these frameworks on energy and infrastructure finance, so almost a third of the region now has taken part in the America Cresce initiative.

But obviously, at the top of tonight’s dinner and discussion will be the crisis in Venezuela; will be, obviously, the economic relationship with these countries, which — between both of our countries — which will be followed up with this America Cresce framework signing, which is really important.

We will continue discussion. We’re very eager to try to pursue and find an avenue for some type of trade deal with Brazil. Obviously, the issue of our commitment and President Trump’s commitment of support to Brazil on its OECD membership. As its last year, obviously we’ve already made Brazil a non-NATO member ally and kind of lifted its profile in that sense. We’d even like to upgrade that further in the next step of the NATO Alliance, per se. And we’re even going to discuss issues of forest conservation and all of those.

But that kind of gives you a feeling of the breadth of the relationship. It highlights the importance of the region for President Trump. There’s been a very consistent view of obviously, you know, kind of the concern of issues very far away that President Trump uniquely (inaudible) our foreign policy beginning at the Western Hemisphere — not having the Western Hemisphere being an afterthought, as we’ve seen in previous administrations, but really having it be at the forefront of our foreign policy priorities.

The 13 engagements over the last year and a half alone and the two years in a row of engagements with Colombia and Brazil and the historic partnership we’re creating there really is a north-south axis — you know, kind of just taking it from that regard, with what we’re seeing in China, with the Wuhan virus and (inaudible). But obviously, those are issues that also concern, which will be discussed — that also concern the relationship, but also highlight why it’s important that our primary relationship, frankly, should be from the north to south.

I think the United States and Brazil are the anchors of that north-south axis, of that north-south relationship. The commercial ties, the supply chains, et cetera — they’re being north-south is good for our national security, it’s good for the economy, it’s good for helping stem illegal migration flows. It’s really a win-win all around for the region. And we’d really like to focus in on that north-south engagement, per se.

And finally, you know, it’s kind of consistent with the President’s view of the Western Hemisphere is this focus on, you know — especially the Americas being for America, meaning, you know, all of us — with a capital “A” — for all of the Americas.

And it’s really kind of a part of the Trump doctrine that you’ve seen already and heard of. He just mentioned at the Latino Coalition speech this past week, you know, that we have the opportunity for this to really be the first fully free, democratic hemisphere. And that’s a goal that we all aspire to: the first fully free and democratic hemisphere in human history. That’s obviously an aspiration that we all have in that regard.

And I think that the other thing that we agree on and will continue to be fleshed out in the weeks and the months to come is in regards to the role of external actors — really, kind of a Monroe 2.0 doctrine, whereby, you know, we’re no longer worried about the 19th century European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, but there are still external actors, that, frankly, are incompatible with a lot of the values and the things that bring the entire Western Hemisphere together, meaning — being mostly, obviously, the Chinese and Russian involvement in the Western Hemisphere.

We truly feel that the Western Hemisphere is the hemisphere of the Americas, for the people of the Americas, and — first and foremost, per se. So I think that’s also very important.

In regards to Venezuela, just one more thing: I know there’s going to be consistent — you saw, obviously, the action on (inaudible) trading by the President. I think in the days and weeks to come, there’s going to continue to be escalation towards the maximum pressure that we seek and that we’ve set out as our policy. Hopefully, we don’t have to get ever to 100 percent maximum pressure, but we are all dedicated, along with our allies — Colombia and Brazil, in particular, but also the rest of the Lima Group members — to achieve that democratic transition and free and fair elections in Venezuela.

As a colleague in the State Department recently stated, you know, this is a — March has turned out to be — gave it a good name of “Maximum-pressure March” because there is — we’re moving that direction and you’re going to continue to see actions in that direction.

So with that, I’ll conclude and open the line for questions. continued HERE