AMNA NAWAZ: Today, President Trump welcomed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for an
official visit to the White House.
Bolsonaro has been dubbed the Trump of the Tropics because of the rhetoric and policies
the two leaders share.
As Nick Schifrin reports, the two presidents are now trying to overcome more than three
decades of Brazilian suspicion of the United States.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We're going to exchange jerseys.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Today at the White House, the leaders of the Western Hemisphere's two largest
economies declared themselves on the same team and allied in a new North-South American
axis.
DONALD TRUMP: We're going to have a fantastic working relationship.
We have many views that are similar.
JAIR BOLSONARO, Brazilian President (through translator): Brazil and the United States
stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties, respect for the traditional family,
respect for God, our creator, against gender ideology and political correctness and against
fake news.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Jair Bolsonaro is the first unabashedly pro-American Brazilian president
since the end of military rule in the 1980s, and made the U.S. his first bilateral foreign
visit.
JAIR BOLSONARO (through translator): It is time to overcome old resistance and explore
the very best potential that is there between Brazil and the U.S.
After all, it is fair to say, today, Brazil has a president who is not anti-American,
which is really unprecedented in the last few decades.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The Trump administration considers Bolsonaro a key conservative ally, especially
on Venezuela, as the U.S. tries to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro is propped up by his military, and the U.S. is trying to convince that military
to give him up by using the Brazilian military as an interlocutor.
As part of today's visit, Brazil agreed to open a military base to U.S. satellites.
The two sides are increasing trade agreements, and the U.S. labeled Brazil a major non-NATO
ally.
But those agreements were less important than what was said, argues "America's Quarterly"
editor in chief Brian Winter.
BRIAN WINTER, Editor in Chief, "American Quarterly": In Bolsonaro, you really have -- there's really
no other leader anywhere in the world who has so openly tried to copy the Donald Trump
model in terms of both substance and style.
That was really what both leaders wanted, was, to a certain extent, some validation.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Back home, supporters call Bolsonaro myth, a reference to the almost
mythical status he achieved after surviving a campaign trail stabbing last September,
and to his middle name, Messias.
They elected him, a populist, to fight corruption, end the country's longest recession, and tackle
endemic violence.
But critics of the man dubbed Trump of the Tropics call him an extremist.
In 2014, he argued with a lawmaker and, after pushing her, yelled, "I wouldn't rape you
because you are not worthy of it."
After he tried to shout down the female head of a commission investigating gender violence,
fellow parliamentarians forced him to leave, calling him a fascist.
In a 2011 interview with "Playboy," he said he would rather his son die in a car accident
than be gay.
And right before his election, when calling in to a rally, Bolsonaro promised the rule
of law would be become rule by law unleashed on his political opponents.
JAIR BOLSONARO (through translator): These red outcasts will be banished from our homeland.
It will be a cleansing never seen in Brazilian history.
BRIAN WINTER: In Brazil's case, where they were still immersed in many respects in the
worst recession in their history, a country with 63,000 homicides per year, with a massive
corruption scandal, a lot of voters heard those kinds of comments and thought, aha,
this is a guy who is going to do things differently in Brasilia, in the capital.
And so that's why he's in office.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But Bolsonaro faces some internal resistance in aligning Brazil to the U.S.
Brazil has not followed the U.S. lead in moving its embassy to Jerusalem.
Brazil has not left the Paris climate accords.
And Brazil is among the West's most protectionist countries, and could oppose opening up the
country to more U.S. trade.
But President Trump is focusing on his personal connection with Bolsonaro, and the administration
called today a historic step toward realigning two countries whose leaders' world views are
themselves aligned.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.