Trump warns ‘twilight hour of socialism has arrived’ and threatens to slap ‘tough sanctions’ on Venezuela while hosting Brazilian leader who blasts ‘gender ideology’ and ‘fake news’

• Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is referred to internationally as the ‘Trump of the Tropics.’ and he made his first appearance at the White House on Tuesday
• Said the U.S. and Brazil share the same beliefs about ‘gender ideology’ as he joined Trump is bashing ‘fake news’ they claimed are corrupting their countries
• Trump warned that the ‘twilight of socialism has arrived’ as he railed against Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, which shares a border with Brazil
• Said the U.S. could intervene militarily and introduce tough new sanctions
• Congratulated Bolsonaro on his ‘tremendous election victory’ and talked about the similarities in their platforms as counterpart supported Trump’s reelection
• Bolsonaro is a self-styled Trump populist who has embraced his tactics 
• He pushed a socialism-busting, anti- immigration message on the president’s favorite news network on the eve of their meeting
• ‘The best majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions or do not intend to do the best or do good to the U.S. people,’ he declared on Fox News
• He warned that Trump is right about socialist tendencies that threaten to erode democracies worldwide, saying, ‘I couldn’t agree more with him’ 

• e-mail

282

View
comments

President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that the ‘twilight of socialism has arrived’ in the Western Hemisphere as he hosted Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the White House.

Trump invoked Venezuela, which shares a border with Brazil, and the turmoil and violence overtaking the nation.

‘It’s also arrived, that twilight hour in our great country, which is doing better that its ever done economically. The last thing that we want in the United States is socialism,’ he argued during a news conference where he said his administration hopes  to alleviate ‘starving’ in Caracas with humanitarian aid and said the nation is ‘nothing more than a Cuban puppet’ with Nicolás Maduro as its leader.

Trump said that Maduro hasn’t seen anything yet, when it comes to sanctions and potential military invention.  ‘We really haven’t done the tough sanctions yet,’ he warned. ‘We can go a lot tougher if we need to do that.’

In a prepared statement, Bolsonaro, known internationally as the ‘Trump of the Tropics,’ said the U.S. and Brazil stand ‘side-by-side’ and share the same beliefs about ‘gender ideology.’ 

He joined Trump in bashing the media and the ‘fake news’ the leaders claim are corrupting their countries.

President Donald Trump warned that the ‘twilight of socialism has arrived’ on Tuesday as he hosted Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the White House

MIRROR IMAGE: The U.S. president praised the Brazilian leader who’s been dubbed the ‘Trump of the Tropics’ by international media, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he’s ‘honored’ by the comparison

HAND OF FRIENDSHIP: The visiting leaders said in an prepared statement that ‘Brazil and the United States stand side by side in their efforts to insure liberties and respect to traditional family life-styles, respect to god, our creator against the gender ideology or the politically collect attitudes and against fake news’

Trump followed on the comment about the media later, as he hammered news networks and social media giants for alleged biases he claims are stifling conservative voices.  

He claimed there’s a ‘stacked deck’ and ‘that includes networks’ as he noted that he was ‘very glad’ to hear Bolsonaro take on the ‘fake news’ in his speech. 

Playing on allegations of ‘collusion’ between Russia and his 2016 campaign, Trump said, in response to a question about the actions his administration could take to address the situation, that the real crime that’s taking place is discrimination against his supporters on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

‘There is collusion with respect to that,’ he argued, ‘because something has to be going on.’

Bolonsaro had mentioned the ‘fake news’ at the start of the news conference.

‘Brazil and the United States stand side by side in their efforts to insure liberties and respect to traditional family life-styles, respect to God, our creator against the gender ideology or the politically collect attitudes and against fake news,’ he’d claimed. ‘Drawing inspiration from Ronald Reagan, I wish to bring to Brazil his administration style, as summarized in the following quotation: People should say what the government can do, and not the other way around.’ 

He said, ‘We want to have a great America, yes, and we also want to have a great Brazil.’

Trump also commented on the similarities between then at the beginning of the event.

He said Bolsonaro had a ‘tremendous election victory’ and noted it was ‘something the whole word was talking about.’

‘I know we’re going to have a fantastic working relationship,’ he said. ‘We have many views that are similar.’ 

Trump was full of praise for the Brazilian leader, elected in a populist wave last year after the U.S. president’s own, unexpected victory, during the Tuesday visit. He told reporters in the Oval Office that he’s ‘honored’ by comparisons to his 63-year-old counterpart.

‘He has done a very outstanding job, ran one of the incredible campaigns. Somebody said it a little bit reminded people of our campaign, which I’m honored by,’ the U.S. president said, before the men exchanged soccer jerseys.

Bolsonaro gifted Trump a jersey bearing the number ’10,’ the same number worn by Brazilian sports hero Pelé beginning with the 1958 World Cup. Trump gave the visiting leader a jersey bearing his name ‘Bolsonaro’ on the back and the number 19. 

‘But you know all about Brazil being the great soccer power. They have great, great players. I can still remember Pelé and so many others. You’ve had a fantastic history,’ the American president said. ‘This is the U.S. National Team, and so, it’s an honor to give that to you,’ Trump said of the jersey he was handing him.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro gifted Trump a jersey bearing the number ’10,’ the same number worn by Brazilian sports hero Pelé beginning with the 1958 World Cup

Trump gave the visiting leader a jersey bearing his name ‘Bolsonaro’ and the number 19

Bolsonaro has lived up to his nickname since his arrival in Washington, pushing a socialism-busting, anti-immigration message on the president’s favorite news network and meeting with an ex-adviser to the U.S. president who credits himself with Trump’s rise. 

‘The best majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions or do not intend to do the best or do good to the U.S. people,’ Bolsonaro declared on Fox News on Monday night.

He also warned that Trump is right about socialist tendencies that threaten to erode democracies worldwide.

‘I see President Trump fighting that trend and I couldn’t agree more with him. I think he’s right. And to a certain extent, we are doing very much the same thing in Brazil,’ he said.

Bolsonaro is a self-styled Trump populist. He has embraced Trump’s campaign tactics, taking swings at immigrants, multi-national organizations, government bureaucracy and the media. 

He has repeatedly denounced media as ‘fake news,’ following in the footsteps of the U.S. president, who was busy bashing the media as ‘dishonest and corrupt’ on Tuesday morning on Twitter in advance of their news conference at the White House.

The leaders trashed media outlets, even as they took two questions from both their nations a piece, after a working luncheon. 

It is tradition for U.S. leaders to hold news conferences with visiting heads of state, although Trump has not always offered the opportunity to all of them, and Tuesday’s news conference was one of the first one with a foreign leader he’s held this year.  

Bolsonaro didn’t getting the grand welcome to the White House that France’s Emmanuel Macon received last spring, when Trump held his first and only State Dinner in honor of the leader he formed an unlikely bond with during their first months in office.

Still, the U.S. signaled on Monday that Bolsonaro, who an official described as ‘unabashedly pro-American’ holds a special place on Trump’s dance card.

‘Obviously, there’s great synergy there and there’s a great mutual respect,’ the White House official said Monday, previewing Bolsonaro’s visit. 

Bolsanaro returned the praise in a Fox News interview, in which he was asked about his unyielding support for Trump.

‘Just like he wants to make America great, I want to make Brazil great,’ Bolsonaro said as a candidate, in one of his many affectations that mimicked Trump. 

Bolsonaro is a self-styled Trump populist. He embraced Trump’s campaign tactics, taking swings at immigrants, multi-national organizations and the media

Handout picture released by the Brazilian Presidency showing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2-R) standing next to US President Donald Trump’s former strategist Stephen Bannon (R) during a meeting with members of his delegation and right-wing influencers, including Matt Schlapp (2-L) at the Brazil embassy on Monday afternoon

He likewise claimed as he came under fire for controversial comments about varying demographic groups, ‘Trump faced the same attacks I am facing – that he was a homophobe, a fascist, a racist, a Nazi.’ 

Appearing on Fox, he called the slams ‘fake news’ and praised the rise of social media as a way to bypass traditional news sources.  

‘If it were all that, I would not at all have been elected president. So, there’s a great deal of fake news certainly around the Brazilian population, has after all learned how to do use social media. And they no longer trust or believe the Brazilian mainstream media which is virtually dominated by the left-wing,’ he said.  

He added, ‘I have nothing against homosexuals or women. I’m not a xenophobe. But I want to have my house in order. The definition of a family, in my view is one and the same. As defined in the Bible, if you engage in, say, a same-sex relationship, you can go ahead and do it, but we cannot allow the government to bring these intents to the classroom setting and teach schoolchildren in the likes of age five.’

Bolsonaro contended that he has been ‘highly criticized’ over his praise for Trump.  

He said of his American counterpart, ‘You know, we do have a great deal in common as I perceived things from Brazil. I have always admired him.

‘I will not deny that,’ he argued. ‘And what I want to ensure is that Brazil will be a great nation, just as Trump wants America to be great again.’ 

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo (R) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrive for a joint press conference at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on January 2 – a day after Bolsonaro’s inauguration

The feeling is mutual. After Bolsonaro promised in his inaugural speech to ‘work tirelessly so that Brazil reaches its destiny,’ after campaigning on the slogan ‘Brazil before everything, and God above all,’ Trump hailed the remarks.

He said the inaugural speech was ‘great’ and told him ‘the U.S.A. is with you!’ in a tweet.

Bolsonaro told him in a reply, as the two conducted international diplomacy over social media: ‘I truly appreciate your words of encouragement. Together, under God’s protection, we shall bring prosperity and progress to our people!’ 

The White House signaled Monday that Trump was flattered by Bolsanaro’s repeated references to him during the campaign and intends to welcome him to the White House with open arms.

‘President Trump has followed President Bolsonaro’s campaign. Obviously, his name was invoked on many occasions during the campaign, and all of you in the broader media have referred to him as the “Trump of the Tropics.” That obviously has caught the President’s attention,’ the senior official who briefed press said. 

In Bolsonaro, he seems himself, the person indicated. ‘He broke all of what I would say were the historic taboos of winning an election in Latin America. 

‘He ran on the campaign that he wanted to be the best friend to the United States, that he wanted to have this close relationship with President Trump and what that would mean for Brazil, what that would mean for the region and the world. I think that was very important,’ the official stated. 

The last Brazilian president to visit the U.S. was Dilma Rousseff in 2015, in the final term of Barack Obama, making up for a visit that had been called off in the wake of revelations that the U.S. had spied on her. 

Obama took her to see the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall near the White House as he attempted to thin the scarring that remained over Edward Snowden’s disclosure that the U.S. was spying on its allies. 

In a nod to the situation on Tuesday, the sitting U.S president said in the Oval Office, ‘I think there was a lot of hostility with other presidents. There’s zero hostility with me.

‘We have a great alliance with Brazil, better than we’ve ever had before,’ Trump declared.

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton stopped to tell press how enthusiastic the White House is about Bolsonaro’s visit after a television interview on Tuesday morning.

• Furious North Korean official says Trump threw away ‘golden… Juan Guaido is accused of sabotaging Venezuela’s power grid…
• America is withdrawing all remaining diplomatic personnel…

Share this article

‘We’re very much looking forward to the visit of President Bolsonaro is Brazil. This is a potentially historic opportunity to redirect relations between our two countries, the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere,’ he said in a brief statement. ‘I think it will have a profound impact not just in this hemisphere, but really around the world.’

Trump sent his national security adviser to the Rio de Janerio for talks with the government-in-waiting, and his secretary of state led a delegation of U.S. officials to the capital for Bolsonaro’s inauguration.

‘Clearly, we have seen, since day one, President Bolsonaro’s election as a real opportunity to fundamentally remake our relationship with Brazil,’ a senior Trump administration official told reporters on Monday.

Trump’s Washington is his first visit to a foreign nation for a bilateral meeting. ‘And that’s very meaningful to us, as clearly it is to them,’ the Trump administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.

Bolsonaro heads to Israel at the end of the month to reaffirm his nation’s ties with the Middle-Eastern nation. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Brazil for Bolsanaro’s Jan. 1 inauguration. Bolsanaro told him, according to the PM, that it was a matter of ‘when, not if’ he would relocate the country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fulfilling a campaign pledge to follow in Trump’s 

Bolsonaro’s administration has since walked back the promise and may not reveal its decision until his visit to Israel at the end of this month. Trade with Arab nations who oppose the move is said to be a major consideration, as the nation is among the top halal meat exporters. 

Trump turn named Brazil a major non-NATO ally, giving Rio a boost in trade with the U.S. It is already one of the biggest traders with the United States in the world, second only to China.  

The U.S. president said later, at the news conference, that he’d like to see Brazil become a full-fledged NATO member, although he acknowledged that the South American nation’s location could prevent it from being accepted by the group. 

‘Have to talk to a lot of people, but maybe a NATO ally, which will greatly advance security and cooperation greatly between our two countries,’ he said.

The U.S. has a trade surplus of $27 billion with Brazil, and it’s one area in which Trump had signaled that he and Bolsonaro could break on.

‘They charge us whatever they want,’ he once said of tariffs the country puts on U.S. good. ‘If you ask some of the companies, they say Brazil is among the toughest in the world – maybe the toughest in the world.’

Trump said Tuesday that he expects trade to go ‘substantially up in both directions’ between the two countries, now that Bolsonaro is in office. 

He also revealed a plan for the U.S. and Brazil to partner on space launches.

‘To put it very simply, the flights are a lot shorter. Brazil’s location to the equator makes it an ideal launch location,’ he said of his space force project that aims to create a sixth branch of the military. 

The refusal of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. and Brazil have dubbed a dictator and want to renounce the presidency, was also a top topic. The U.S. president has left the door open to military intervention but has not committed to deploying troops to the region.  

Trump said Tuesday, at the start of their meeting, all options remain on the table.  

‘And it’s a shame what’s happening in Venezuela,’ he said. ‘The death, and the destruction, and the hunger. Hard to believe one of the wealthiest countries is now one of the poorest and most impoverished countries. So we’ll be talking about that in great length.’  

Brazil has welcomed 120,000 refugees from Venezuela amid the turmoil, a U.S. official said before the meeting.

‘So they’re suffering the firsthand consequences on that,’ the person said.  

Bolsonaro said during the news conference that the restoration of democracy is a shared goal between the two administrations. 

‘As much as it is possible for us to do together to sort out the issue of the Venezuelan dictatorship, Brazil will be more than willing and ready to fulfill this mission and take freedom and democracy to that country, which up until recently was one of the wealthiest countries in South America,’ he said. 

‘But nowadays, people are starving to death, they are suffering violence, lack of medication. It’s something terrible that’s going on in there,’ he argued. ‘And we need to put an end to this issue, which is pervasive to the whole wide world.’

Source: Read Full Article