President Bolsonaro willing to discuss hosting US base in Brazil

Brazil's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro says he is open to discussing the possibility of hosting a US military base, underlining a major shift in the Latin American country’s foreign policy.

Bolsonaro, who took office earlier this week, claimed that Russia’s support of President Nicolas Maduro's "dictatorship" in neighboring Venezuela was a worrying development.

The 63-year-old former Army captain told the SBT TV network in an interview taped on Thursday that if “Moscow’s increasing support” of Maduro meant he would allow US military presence in his country, he would certainly be willing to negotiate that possibility.

He stressed that what Brazil seeks is to have "supremacy here in South America", upending foreign policy in the country, which saw the leftist Workers Party emphasizing South-South relations and sometimes tussling on the international stage with the US.  

Bolsonaro said he supported Washington’s policy with regard to opposing the "authoritarian regimes" of left-wing governments in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

An admirer of both Brazil’s 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship and US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has quickly deepened ties with the Unites States and Israel. This has concerned Brazil’s leftist leaders who had, for 13 years, been making efforts to build relationships with Brazil’s South American neighbors and other developing countries before losing to Bolsonaro.

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