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Jair Bolsonaro’s presence in the US has become a diplomatic quandary for President Joe Biden after supporters of the former Brazilian leader stormed government buildings over the weekend.
What was initially seen as a target of humor — Bolsonaro was photographed eating at a KFC and strolling through a Publix supermarket in Florida after he arrived in the US on December 30 — became more serious after thousands -thousands of his supporters stormed Brazil’s congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday. Bolsonaro’s successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, accused him of inciting the riots.
The violence has echoes of the January 6 uprising in the US, and the Biden administration, which has aligned itself with Lula’s government, is weighing what to do next with Bolsonaro, who is an ally of former President Donald Trump and has been involved in his hard work. right populism.
Biden appears to have the power to revoke Bolsonaro’s visa and kick him out of the country, and is already under pressure from progressives to do so.
The former president is currently hospitalized near Orlando, Florida, with stomach problems, according to his wife. He has undergone several surgeries since he was stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in 2018.
He could face a long legal battle over his condition. And then there is the question of whether Lula and his supporters really want him back in their country.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that the US had not received an extradition request from Brazil. Behind the silence from Brasilia, administration officials are considering whether they can do anything to encourage Bolsonaro to leave the US, according to people familiar with the conversations.
The White House said on Monday night that Biden and Lula spoke by phone, and the American president “expressed the unwavering support of the United States for democracy in Brazil.” Biden also invited Lula to visit Washington early next month. The invitation was accepted, according to the statement, which did not mention Bolsonaro by name.
One challenge for US officials seeking to expedite Bolsonaro’s departure is figuring out how he got into the US. There is uncertainty within the administration about which visa he got, people familiar with the matter said. He may be using his diplomatic passport, or he may be using a personal passport and visiting Florida on a tourist visa.
Discussions of options are at an early stage, and include asking him to leave or explore grounds to cancel his visa, the people said. They asked not to be identified because no decision has been made yet.
Trump connection
Bolsonaro’s fate is not just about Brazil. There are heavy political stakes for the US, too. Bolsonaro and Trump are political allies who follow nationalist agendas and endorse each other in re-election bids. Both also raised suspicions about their country’s electoral systems and refused to agree after their defeats. Bolsonaro arrived in the US on December 30 while he was still president, skipping Lula’s inauguration.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who promoted false claims of a rigged 2020 US presidential election, used his War Room podcast and posts on the social-media site Gettr to push the idea that the Brazilian election stole and support the rioters.
After Lula defeated Bolsonaro, Bannon posted on Gettr on October 30 that “This Election Was Stolen in Broad Daylight.” Bannon called the rioters “Brazilian Freedom Fighters” on Gettr and said, “Lula stole the Election, Brazilians know that.”
The comments are consistent with Bannon’s past support for Bolsonaro and his family. After Trump lost his re-election bid, Bannon advised Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo and suggested that Bolsonaro’s Brazil was an embodiment of the style of right-wing nationalism that Trump sought to impose on the US.
“In many ways, the movement in Brazil is actually more advanced than in the United States,” Bannon told Bloomberg NEwS at that time.
Some Democratic lawmakers have urged Biden to extradite Bolsonaro, increasing pressure on the administration. Representatives Joaquin Castro of Texas and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York condemned the actions of Bolsonaro’s supporters as domestic terrorism.
“The US must stop giving Bolsonaro sanctuary in Florida,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet. “Almost two years to the day that the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad trying to do the same in Brazil.”
The condemnation of Bolsonaro
Bolsonaro condemned the destruction of public property by some of his supporters, which brought the Twitter at the end of the week to say that “depredations and invasions of public buildings as we see today, such as the acts carried out by the left in 2013 and 2017, are not within the rules.”
But that didn’t stop some officials from demanding his return.
A Brazilian senator asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday to order Bolsonaro’s immediate return to the country. Senator Renan Calheiros said Bolsonaro should explain his alleged incitement to the riots that swept through Brasilia. He asked the court to issue an arrest order if the former president refuses to cooperate with the investigation.
Moraes, who is leading an investigation into alleged acts against democracy in Brazil, has already issued several arrest warrants for Bolsonaro’s supporters.
US administrations have in the past moved quickly to respond to extradition requests when they came. In 2018, the US extradited former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who was later acquitted of espionage and embezzlement charges.
“We have not received any official request from the Brazilian government regarding this issue,” Sullivan said. “If and when we do we will deal with it, and if and when we have any information to provide, we will.”
Bolsonaro has yet to face criminal charges in Brazil, meaning Lula’s government has no basis for an extradition request. This may change as its investigation into the riots continues.
While declining to mention Bolsonaro individually, State Department spokesman Ned Price said people who travel to the US on the so-called A visa, reserved for government officials and diplomats, have 30 days to change their immigration status if they leave their job. while in the US.
“It should be incumbent on the visa holder to take that action,” Price said. “If a person has no basis for being in the United States, that individual can be removed by the Department of Homeland Security.”
Asked if the US was waiting for Lula’s government to reach out, Sullivan said “I don’t want you to take that as an implication.”
“The United States moves visas all the time, for all kinds of reasons,” Sullivan said. “In this particular case, this particular individual, again, I have to proceed with great caution in terms of how I discuss it because of the legal issues and precedential issues involved. “
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