Blinken arrives in Brazil for G20 meeting
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Brazil Tuesday for his first trip to the South American nation, arriving amid a diplomatic spat after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva enraged Washington ally Israel by comparing its Gaza campaign to the Holocaust.
Blinken will start his visit in Brasilia, and also go to Rio de Janeiro for a Group of 20 summit, followed by a stop in Argentina, where he will confer with the new President Javier Milei.
For the top U.S. diplomat, the belated first trip to the Latin American powers had been seen as an opportunity to build ties with two key leaders, in a break from his exhaustive trips to the Middle East.
But the turmoil engulfing that region has unexpectedly followed him.
Over the weekend, the 78-year-old veteran leftist Lula, on a trip to Ethiopia for an African Union summit, said that what was happening in the Gaza Strip “isn’t a war, it’s a genocide.”
“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” Lula said.
He received backing Tuesday from the presidents of Colombia and Bolivia, two fellow South American countries to have criticized Israel.
The comparison outraged Israel, which declared Lula persona non grata and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Brazilian president had “crossed a red line.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of Lula’s remarks, “Obviously we disagree with those comments.” “We have been quite clear that we do not believe that genocide has occurred in Gaza,” Miller told reporters Tuesday.
In tit-for-tat escalation, Brazil and Israel have each summoned the other’s ambassador, with Brazil recalling its envoy for consultations. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Lula’s comparisons “delusional,” and was himself called a liar by his Brazilian counterpart.
The war started Oct. 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that left about 1,160 people dead in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages — 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 29,092 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
President Joe Biden has been Israel’s key backer, with the United States on Tuesday again vetoing a ceasefire call at the Security Council, even as Biden voices concern over the toll on civilians and presses Israel to let in more aid.
The potentially awkward encounter with Lula comes after hopes of a new start in U.S.-Brazil relations.
Blinken’s first trip as secretary of state to Brazil comes more than three years into his tenure, an unusually long wait to visit the Western Hemisphere’s second most populous nation.