Brazil’s Bolsonaro open to G7 aid if Macron ‘withdraws insults’

PORTO VELHO, Brazil: Brazil´s President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday he was open to discussing G7 aid for fighting fires in the Amazon if his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron “withdraws insults” made against him.

Bolsonaro´s remarks come amid an escalating war of words with Macron over the worst fires in years that have sparked a global outcry and threatened to torpedo a huge trade deal between the European Union and South American countries. Hours earlier, a top Brazilian official had rejected the G7 countries´ offer of $20 million to combat the fires devastating the forest in Brazil and Bolivia, saying Macron should take care of “his home and his colonies. “Mr Macron must withdraw the insults he made against me,” Bolsonaro told reporters in the capital Brasilia. “To talk or accept anything from France, with the best possible intentions, he has to withdraw these words, and from there we can talk.”

Macron and Bolsonaro have repeatedly locked horns in the past week, with the French leader accusing Bolsonaro of lying to him about his commitments on climate change and vowing to block the EU-Mercosur trade deal involving Brazil that took decades to negotiate. On Monday, Macron condemned “extraordinarily rude” comments made about his wife Brigitte by Bolsonaro a day earlier. Bolsonaro has hit back, accusing Macron of treating Brazil like “a colony or no-man´s land.” The latest official figures show 1,659 new fires were started in Brazil between Sunday and Monday, taking the total this year to 82,285 — the highest since at least 2013 — even as military aircraft and troops help battle the blazes. More than half of the fires are in the massive Amazon basin.

Bolsonaro — a climate-change skeptic — has faced criticism at home over his delayed response to the fires and thousands have protested in Brazil in recent days to denounce the destruction.