Trump tells Jair Bolsonaro that he'll try to get Brazil into NATO, despite it only being open to the United States, Canada and European countries

Brazil is not in Europe

It's more than 8,000 km away, actually

It looks like Donald Trump's found a kindred spirit over the course of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro's stay at the White House, with Bolsonaro referring to 'fake news' and backing Trump's much-delayed border wall with Mexico. Trump wants to show Bolsonaro how much he means to him with a grand gesture, though it's not one which political practicalities or basic geography would suggest is possible.

"I also intend to designate Brazil as a major non-NATO ally, or even possibly - if you start thinking about it - maybe a NATO ally," Trump said yesterday. "I have to talk to a lot of people, but maybe a NATO ally."

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That's right-wing demagogue Jair Bolsonaro, the one who said black Brazilians "weren't even fit for breeding" in 2017. Hmm. Anyway, Trump's suggestion that he could get him NATO queue-jump and a tray of shots if he turned up before midnight isn't based in any kind of logical understanding of what NATO is and how it works.

To get Brazil into NATO, Trump would have to not just talk to a lot of people but persuade all of the organisation's 29 member states to agree to changing article 10 of NATO's founding treaty, which says only European nations can join except the United States and Canada, and has stood since 1949. Or, failing that, he could airlift Brazil out of South America and drop it 8,000 km away in the North Sea. Either way, it's not particularly likely.

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