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Originally published on December 15, 2020 11:28 am
Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET
Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Joe Biden on his win in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, becoming one of the last world leaders to do so. Hours afterward, other leaders who had held off in recognizing Biden s victory Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also congratulated Biden.
All three leaders had recently said they would wait for the U.S. election results to become official before contacting the winner. They reached out to Biden after the Electoral College affirmed his defeat of President Trump.
Full article Bolsonaro, a far-right climate-change skeptic, has faced international criticism over deforestation in the Amazon, which has surged on his watch. The distrust is there, the EU ambassador to Brazil, Spanish diplomat Ignacio Ybanez Rubio, said in an interview on Brazil s Congresso em Foco news site.
Distrust in Europe of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro s government is holding up ratification of a trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur, the EU ambassador to Brasilia said.
Agreed in principle last year after two decades of negotiations, the EU s draft deal with the South American trade bloc would create a huge market of more than 750 million people.
By - Associated Press - Tuesday, December 15, 2020
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro congratulated Joe Biden on Tuesday for winning the U.S. presidential election against Donald Trump.
“Since delegates acknowledged that he was actually elected, we will no longer discuss whether there was a smooth election there or not,” Bolsonaro said in a TV interview with Band, referring to Trump’s allegations that there had been election fraud.
Bolsonaro, a far-right populist who has at times embraced the nickname “Trump of the Tropics”, considered Trump to be a close ally, often posting videos of himself watching his speeches.
FILE PHOTO: Brazil s President Jair Bolsonaro looks on during a ceremony of Aviator s Day at Brasilia Air Base
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday congratulated U.S. President-elect Joe Biden for his Nov. 3 election victory, finally accepting the loss of Donald Trump, a political idol with whom he had sought to forge closer bilateral ties.
Biden’s victory and Bolsonaro’s reluctance to recognize it have cast a dark cloud over U.S.-Brazilian relations, which had warmed to the point of discussing a free trade deal last year.
Biden is likely to take a tougher line on Brasilia in areas such as the environment, human rights and trade, leaving the far-right Bolsonaro even more isolated on the global stage.