Bolsonaro Was Not Elected to Take Brazil as He Found It
Latin America’s biggest democracy has a bigger global role to play.
Just say no to Wittgenstein.
Photographer: Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images
“Brazilian foreign policy cannot change.” That is how a Brazilian politician summarized his dislike for the foreign policy of President Jair Bolsonaro and myself. Those views are representative of people who have been so traumatized by the shambolic, far-left foreign policy of the governments of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff (2003-2016) that they prefer inaction and indifference to any attempt to make Brazil a global player again. They are so used to bad change that they would rather not risk any change at all.
Those people think the only alternative to Lula’s disaster in foreign policy is to think small, repeat United Nations talking points and try to do some trade. They strive for golden mediocrity. They want Brazil to accept “the world as we found it,” to paraphrase the famous expression of Ludwig Wittgenstein.