Amid Bromance, Trump, Bolsonaro Forge Security Alliance

President Trump hosted Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” at the White House on Tuesday, and most of Washington seemed transfixed by the two leaders’ budding nationalist bromance and effusive embrace of each other’s brash style and bravado.

Indeed, it was difficult not to be. During an Oval Office meeting and a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, the two gushed about their shared conservative values and endorsed each other’s confrontations with the mainstream media.

“I think Brazil’s relationship with the United States, because of our friendship is better than it’s ever been so far,” Trump said after the leaders held a lunch meeting. 

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who crafted his own anti-establishment campaign based on Trump’s 2016 run, pledged that the United States and Brazil would “stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God our creator against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.”

Trump, addressing the media in the Rose Garden, responded that he was “very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news.’”