US Envoy to Head to Brazil Following up on High-Level Talks
. The U.S. Ambassador to Brazil is scheduled to have high-level meetings with the president and top diplomats next week.
UNITED NATIONS, UNITED STATES (AP) Next week, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield will travel to Brazil in order to follow up on high-level talks between the presidents of both countries and their top diplomats.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations announced late Wednesday that she would visit Brasilia and then travel to Salvador from May 2-4, one of America's oldest cities and a center for Afro-Brazilian cultures.
Thomas-Greenfield’s visit comes after a February White House meeting, where Brazilian President Luiz inacio Lula da So stressed the importance of defending the democracy and preserving Amazon rain forest. It also follows talks between U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken (US) and Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro VIeira (BRA), on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Ministerial Meeting in New Delhi at the beginning of March.
Lula also reached out China and Russia. He visited Beijing in early October to meet China's president Xi Jinping and held talks with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov last week in Brasilia.
Brazil's president has been criticized by the U.S., the European Union and others for claiming that Kyiv is responsible for the conflict in Ukraine which began on February 24, 2022 with the Russian invasion.
Thomas-Greenfield is a member Biden's cabinet and will be promoting multilateralism and democracy on this trip. She will also focus on climate change, food security and continuing regional migration cooperation.
Brazil is Latin America's biggest country and one of the world's major exporters. It currently serves a two-year mandate on the U.N. Security Council. According to the mission, in Brasilia the ambassador will be meeting with government officials "to discuss our partnerships in the region and the United Nations."
The mission stated that she will also speak at the University of Brasilia and meet Brazilians who are dealing with more than 250,000 Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the country.
Thomas-Greenfield, according to the mission, will be in Salvador to highlight the U.S.'s commitment to reinvigorate 2008 U.S. Brazil Joint Action Plan to eliminate racial and ethnic discrimination and promote equality and engage with Afro Brazilian civil society and youth.