Darren Beattie, the recently appointed U.S. State Department senior adviser for Brazil policy, had planned to attend a forum on critical minerals in São Paulo in mid-March. But his visa was denied.
The reason had nothing to do with U.S. policy on critical minerals. Rather, Beattie reportedly had plans to make a detour to Brasilia to visit former President Jair Bolsonaro. The right-wing politician, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, has been in jail serving a sentence for attempting to prevent his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office. On March 25 it was announced that the Brazilian Supreme Court will provisionally allow Bolsonaro to serve his sentence at home, due to ill health.
