“Brazil did not receive any official communication about the visit,” said the Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Foreign Ministry, Gisela Padovan, referring to the trip that Milei has scheduled for the weekend to the Camboriú resort, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, to participate in a conservative congress.
According to TV Globo, the ruler of the neighboring country does not plan, during his stay on national soil, to meet his counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Milei is expected to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), scheduled for July 6-7.
The event includes conferences by right-wing and far-right politicians such as former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Given the announcement of prioritizing his participation in the forum in Camboriú, the diplomat declared that her country regrets Milei’s decision not to attend the Summit of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), which begins on Monday in Paraguay.
“Politically, it is regrettable that he is not present, but it is a sovereign decision,” clarified Padovan, who assured that “Mercosur is a mechanism that is very consolidated” and the absence of a president does not affect the integration process built by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, to which Bolivia now joins, in the process of accession.
If he goes to the forum, it would be Milei’s first visit to Brazil since he took power last December.
Diplomats heard by TV Globo evaluate that the position of the controversial Argentine economist is clear: focus on internal politics and greetings to the local and global right, while traditional diplomacy and relations with international blocs and organizations are in charge of representatives.
For the Planalto Palace, headquarters of the Executive Branch in this capital, Milei’s option for a meeting with Bolsonaro and an absence from the Mercosur Summit may reinforce the distance with Lula.
The two never met in a bilateral meeting, although Brazil and Argentina are the continent’s main trading partners.
In June, Lula and Milei were together in Italy at the G7 Summit, a group of the most industrialized countries in the world, made up of Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union, but they did not meet. They gathered alone.
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