‘That would really be historic’: Trump wants NATO to tighten ties with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro

[corbe]

‘That would really be historic’: Trump wants NATO to tighten ties with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro

by Joel Gehrke

March 07, 2020 06:35 PM
 
President Trump wants NATO to take the next step towards partnering with Brazil, as part of an effort to fortify the Western Hemisphere against Russian and Chinese encroachment.

“The next level up is association,” a senior administration official told reporters as Trump prepared to host Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. “The president had even mentioned about having it become a full-fledged NATO member. That's something that would really be historic ... that’s nothing I would discard.”

Any move to enhance Brazil’s standing with the transatlantic alliance would have to overcome Bolsonaro’s running feud with French President Emmanuel Macron, which is anchored in a dispute over forest fires in the Amazon but degenerated into Bolsonaro mocking the French leader’s wife.

Yet Brazil’s election of the anti-Communist leader in 2018 elevated an important ally for U.S. efforts to address the Venezuela crisis, with potentially broader ramifications for Washington’s rivalry with Russia and China.

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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/that-would-really-be-historic-trump-wants-nato-to-tighten-ties-with-brazils-jair-bolsonaro

[Cyber Liberty]

I'm not for expanding NATO. If anything we could use a little shrinkage at the south-east end.