Two friends of multilateralism to conduct Brazil's foreign policy
The predicted reappointment of the two men is a powerful symbol of Brazil’s return to its former diplomatic roots and tradition.
Brazil’s new government looks set to put two of the country’s most vocal supporters of the multilateral system, Celso Amorim and Mauro Vieira, in charge of its diplomacy, The G|O has learned.
President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should announce his cabinet next week.
As we previously reported, Amorim—former ambassador in Geneva, former chair of the Tobacco Convention of the ILO Council, and key negotiator for the G20 at the WTO–will take the role of Lula’s special advisor on foreign policy, a newly created position. The experienced diplomat was Foreign Minister for eight years under the new President’s first two mandates and, later, led the Ministry of Defense under Dilma Rousseff’s presidency.
Vieira, meanwhile, former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Dilma Rousseff, is slated to return to his previous position as head of Itamaraty (the Foreign Ministry). The ink on his contract is not dry, however. “Like at the World Cup, Brazilian politics is hard to predict until the very end of the game,” we are told.
Vieira is also a well-known face in the multilateral world. As head of the Brazilian mission to the UN in New York, Vieira was credited as being a talented negotiator and a staunch supporter of the rules-based multilateral system.
After four years of a far-right government that made nationalism, isolationism, and the refusal to strengthen international organizations the cornerstone of its policy, the predicted reappointment of the two men is a powerful symbol of Brazil’s return to its former diplomatic roots and tradition.
-JC