U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he was confident relations with Brazil were on the road to recovery after he assured President Dilma Rousseff that Washington has changed the way it conducts electronic surveillance.
U.S.-Brazil relations have been largely on ice since documents leaked last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden showed that Washington had spied on Rousseff and other world leaders.
A day after watching the U.S. soccer team’s victorious debut in the World Cup in the northeastern Brazilian city of Natal, Biden traveled to the capital to meet with Rousseff in hopes of turning the page on the espionage spat.
Biden said he and Rousseff had a “candid” talk about the episode and Internet surveillance, and that he was “confident” the hour-long discussion would help thaw relations between the hemisphere’s two biggest economies.
True, there is some work to be done here despite the fact that we were told the whole world would love us if we just elected The Lightbringer to bathe the planet in soothing words and hugs. I’m not sure any sober person is comforted by the words, “Biden’s on it,” though.
Meanwhile, while the rest of the world heads down a low-flush toilet, this is what our Secretary of State is up to:
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