Such decision, which will be mandatory, reverses the unilateral measure adopted by the administration of then President Jair Bolsonaro, in June 2019, to suspend the visa requirement for those countries and Japan.

On the occasion, it was alleged that this would ease the entry of more tourists, in an unprecedented decision for ignoring the principle of reciprocity generally used by diplomacy.

In this regard, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira, explained that the reciprocity policy is a historical mechanism of Brazilian diplomacy. “The country that accepts Brazilian travelers without a physical visa, we will give them the same advantage”, Vieira specified. According to the Foreign Minister, the federal government called the four countries to negotiate visas and only the Japanese agreed to free visas for Brazilians.

Since September, the visa exemption between Japan and Brazil is in force, after an agreement signed by Lula and the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, during the G7 Summit (group formed by the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada), held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, in the first semester of 2023.

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