ATLANTA, Oct 31 (Reuters) – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday he spoke with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira at a Group of 20 meeting, and that they will see each other again in a few weeks, a sign that Washington and Brasilia could de-escalate their diplomatic feud.
Vieira took part in the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting, which was hosted by Rubio in Atlanta. The two men spoke briefly, and agreed to meet in the coming weeks before a G20 leaders summit in Miami in December, a source familiar with the plans said.
That planned meeting could signal an effort by both countries to move on after discord stemming from the Trump administration’s decision in August to revoke the visa of Brazil’s ambassador in Washington and the US decision to grant a visa to Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro after he lost the presidential election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Rubio told journalists that he and Vieira were expected to see each other again in France at a G7 foreign ministers’ summit that will take place next month. Brazil is expected to attend the meeting as an observer, he noted.
A Brazilian official downplayed tensions over Brazil’s failure to approve US President Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador in Brasilia and Lula’s victory in the October 25 runoff election.
“We’re clearly not politicizing the issue, as we haven’t in other situations regarding Brazilian citizens who have fled to the US,” the Brazilian official said.
A US official and a person familiar with the matter have told Reuters that Trump has no current plans to support Bolsonaro’s political ambitions despite allowing the Brazilian politician into the US.
Rubio said on Saturday that the US government “was not involved directly in any of the moves” that led to Bolsonaro’s departure from Brazil earlier this week.
Bolsonaro’s father, far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, is imprisoned in Brazil for plotting a coup after losing his own re-election bid in 2022.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Atlanta and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by André Romani in Sao Paulo; Editing by Tom Hogue, Peter Graff and Paul Simao)
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