Steve Bannon gives Brazil’s new president Bolsonaro advice over dinner the day before man dubbed Trump of the Tropics gets White House meeting

• Trump and Brazil’s new right wing leader are set to meet Tuesday
• Jair Bolsonaro took office in January
• He dined at the Brazilian embassy in Washington with Bannon, ACU head Matt Schlapp, and conservative commentators
• On Monday Bolsonaro visited the CIA 
• Also was to visit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
• Bolsonaro’s son son Eduardo is a Brazilian legislator 
• The son broke news of the visit online 

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Brazil’s new right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro began his tour of Washington, D.C. by dining with former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, then visited the CIA on Monday.

Bolsonaro, whose conservative rise, attacks on the media, and freewheeling style have drawn comparisons to Trump, dined Sunday night along with the exiled former Trump confidant and other conservative commentators. 

Also present were American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp, whose wife is White House official Mercedes Schlapp, plus conservative commentator Roger Kimball and Wall Street Journal editorial writer Anastasia O’Grady.

A handout picture released by the Brazilian Presidency shows Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro sitting next to President Donald Trump’s former strategist Stephen Bannon. Bolsonaro is to meet Trump on Tuesday

According to an image, Bolsonaro hosted a dinner for a large group seated at a candle-lit table, where generous portions of red caviar was served. 

On Monday, Brazilian president visited CIA headquarters Monday, in another unusual PR move.

The CIA backed a 1964 coup against President João Goulart, who had been democratically elected. 

‘Some of the Bolsonaro team on the right see themselves as disciples of the Bannon movement and representatives of Bannon for Brazil and Latin America,” Fernando Cutz, a former Trump National Security Council official told McClatchy.

He is also getting a show of appreciation from President Trump, staying at Blair House across from the White House and joining in an expected press conference Tuesday. 

QUITE A COUP: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonarolater visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, after earlier making a trip to the CIA that his son Eduardo, a Brazilian legislator, revealed online

President Trump and Bolsonaro were expected to use their Tuesday meeting to forge ties in their growing conservative populist alliance

Bolsonaro began his trip to Washington by hosting a dinner with conservatives at the Brazilian embassy

Trump fired Bannon after he was quoted extensively in Michael Wolff’s tell-all ‘Fire and Fury.’ 

Also pictured at the dinner was Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead. 

Bolsonaro’s unusual move to visit the CIA on his trip reflects the country’s shift in leadership to a more pro-American stance.

President Bolsonaro planned to discuss ‘international themes in the region’ at the visit to headquarters in Langley, Virginia, according to his son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying him.

Eduardo Bolsonaro described the CIA as ‘one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world,’ in a tweet that was likely to raise eyebrows back home in Brazil, where the U.S. and its spy services have been regarded with suspicion in recent years.

In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of then-President Dilma Rousseff, leading to a years of frosty relations between the U.S. and Brazil.

‘No Brazilian president had ever paid a visit to the CIA,’ said Celso Amorim, who served as foreign minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and is a Bolsonaro critic. ‘This is an explicitly submissive position. Nothing compares to this.’

Bolsonaro has echoed President Trump’s call for law and order, and in the past has compared homosexuality to pedophilia

The CIA had no comment on the visit.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro attends a ceremony marking the 211th anniversary of Brazilian Marine Corps in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, March 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Bolsonaro visited the agency with his justice minister, Sergio Moro, leading daily O Globo reported. The paper noted that the visit was not published in the president’s agenda and press were not allowed to accompany him inside.

The far-right Bolsonaro was elected last year and is an admirer of President Donald Trump. He sought to underscore his pro-America stance with a tweet upon his arrival Sunday.

‘For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC,’ he said in the tweet. ‘It’s the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for.’

Bolsonaro was scheduled to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce later Monday.

He is to meet with Trump on Tuesday, when he is expected to discuss trade and cooperation on the international campaign to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to give up power to the opposition.

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