Mr. Obama met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at the White House on Tuesday.
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The Brazilian leader is now trying to let bygones be bygones, and is in Washington, D.C., to visit with President Obama.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci). President Barack Obama walks with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, second from right, during a visit the Martin Luther King Jr.
The USA and Brazil also agreed to collaborate on a number of forestry and land use initiatives that can improve the sustainable management and climate resilience of forests and agricultural systems.
Mr. Deese said Tuesday’s announcements should help provide momentum for the global climate accord, and he said a new U.S.-Brazil climate-change working group would increase the two countries’ cooperation and shine a spotlight on these issues. The president and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff sought Tuesday to cast their nations as “natural partners” collaborating closely on critical issues like climate and regional diplomacy, glossing over recent tensions over spying that have strained relations between the USA and Brazil.
“The change is particularly due to the fact that President Obama and the US government have stated on several occasions that they would no longer engage in intrusive acts of spying on friendly countries”.
In New York, she called on investors to embrace an economy that is the largest in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world – but one that is expected to shrink by about 1.2 percent this year.
From the two major Supreme Court decisions that went his way to the soaring eulogy he delivered for the Charleston victims – culminating in “Amazing Grace” – there is a general consensus that last week was most likely the pinnacle Barack Obama’s presidency.
After days of energy talks with Chinese officials last week, State Department special envoy on climate change Todd Stern said that the individual agreements send a signal to other governments as a “huge confidence builder” that no country will shoulder the burden of an international deal.
Rousseff also vowed to reforest an area the size of England or Pennsylvania by 2030 and embark on the difficult task of achieving a “zero illegal deforestation rate between now and 2030”.
On a lighter note, Rousseff said she gave Obama a green and yellow Brazilian national team sweatshirt ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Rousseff is on a two-day visit to the US.
The US already has submitted a plan to cut greenhouse gases by 26% to 28% by 2025 based on 2005 levels. Low-key US diplomacy in some of the region’s trouble spots and high-level attention to Brazil from the likes of Vice President Joe Biden haven’t hurt, either.
Rousseff has been suffering through a political firestorm in Brazil of late, after a scandal surrounding state-controlled oil giant Petrobras, slow economic growth, and a crippling drought around São Paulo have engaged much of the country in a heated conversation.
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Since Rousseff is not on a state visit, she will not receive a welcome ceremony on the White House South Lawn or be celebrated with the formal State Dinner.
