(Bloomberg) -- Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is determined to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City next week, despite aides' concerns over his recovery from surgery and a potentially hostile reception from European delegates.
The president's doctors are due to give their final assessment of his readiness to travel on Friday, but barring an absolute ban Bolsonaro will go, according to his spokesman, Otavio Rego Barros. First lady Michelle Bolsonaro intends to travel with the president, he added.
“I am 100% certain that the president will go to New York,” Rego Barros said. “He is pouring his heart into his speech to present our country its potential as well as to clarify all this issues relating to Brazil and the environment.”
Bolsonaro on Wednesday met the small group of advisers helping him to write his speech, including his foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo; his minister for institutional security, General Augusto Heleno; and his son Eduardo, the president's nominee to become Brazil's next ambassador to the U.S.
Given the recent global controversy over his government's handling of the fires burning in the Amazon rainforest -- and Bolsonaro's abrasive comments to the leaders of France and Germany -- there's an unusual degree of interest in Brazil's address to the UNGA this year.
Amazon Gold and Army Suspicion Fuel Bolsonaro's Rainforest Rage
This will be Bolsonaro's second great opportunity to speak to the international community, following his debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. In a seven-minute speech, Bolsonaro sought to tout his government's reformist credentials to global investors.
At the occasion, he also said Brazil is one of the most environmentally-friendly nations and that critics have much to learn from the South American country in this area -- assertions he's likely to repeat at the UN.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Bruce Douglas, Walter Brandimarte
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