Brian Winter, vice president of AS/COA, spoke with PBS’s NewsHour about the visit Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro paid to President Donald Trump. "There's really no other leader anywhere in the world who has so openly tried to copy the Donald Trump model in terms of both substance and style. That was really what both leaders wanted, to a certain extent, some validation," said Winter about Bolsonaro. 

On how Bolsonaro won the presidency, Winter commented, "In Brazil's case, where they were still immersed in many respects in the worst recession in their history, a country with 63,000 homicides per year, with a massive corruption scandal, a lot of voters heard those kinds of comments and thought, 'Aha, this is a guy who is going to do things differently in Brasília, in the capital.' And so that's why he's in office."

GZERO's Alex Kliment sits down with Roberto Simon, Politics Editor of Americas Quarterly, to learn what Brazil's controversial president wants to get out of his meeting with Donald Trump. 

Simon discussed what President Bolsonaro is looking to get with his visit to the United States. "The image of him visiting the Oval Office and looking presidential is important for his core constituence." Simon explained it is also a "way of validating his pro-market agenda."

According to Simon, Bolsonaro's story resembles what happened in the United States. "It is not a coincidence. The Bolsonaro family and Bolsonaro himself borrowed a lot of things from the Trump label, such as dismissing climate change."

Panelists

• Juan José Echavarría, Governor, Central Bank of Colombia
• Arminio Fraga, Co-Founder & CEO, Gávea Investimentos; former President of the Central Bank of Brazil
• Susan Segal, President & CEO, Americas Society/Council of the Americas (moderator)

“The case for opening the economy is very clear,” said Colombian Central Bank Governor Juan José Echevarría at the Latin American Business Conference 2019, making the case for increased regional integration and trade. Similary, former Brazilian Central Bank President Arminio Fraga suggested Brazil should join economic blocs like the Pacific Alliance. The two also discussed different areas of potential reform in their respective countries.

Learn more about conference co-organizers, Young Professionals of the Americas.