Ernesto Henrique Fraga Araújo (born 15 May 1967) is a Brazilian

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

and Brazil's former Minister of Foreign Affairs. Chosen by Brazil's president

Jair Bolsonaro Jair Messias Bolsonaro (; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who has been the 38th president of Brazil since 1 January 2019. He was elected in 2018 as a member of the Social Liberal Party, which he turn ...

in January 2019 following a suggestion made by Olavo de Carvalho, Araújo subscribes to theories such as man-made climate change is untrue and a "communist plot", "

globalism Globalism refers to various patterns of meaning beyond the merely international. It is used by political scientists, such as Joseph Nye, to describe "attempts to understand all the interconnections of the modern world—and to highlight patterns ...

" is a process driven by "

cultural Marxism The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture. The conspiracy theory misrepresents the ...

", and the COVID-19 (Coronarivus) pandemic is the result of another communist plot he dubbed "comunavirus".

Career

Araújo is a career diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (often called Itamaraty after its headquarters). He served in Itamaraty's division of Mercosur affairs from 1991 to 1995, from 2007 to July 2010 and from 2010 to 2015 he was deputy chief at the Brazilian Embassies in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

and in Washington, D.C., respectively. In June 2018, he was promoted to the rank of First Class Minister in the Brazilian Foreign Service, a career diplomat's top rank, that allows them to be posted as Ambassadors. In the custom of the Brazilian Foreign Service, First Class Ministers are styled "Ambassador" even when they have not yet assumed the direction of an embassy, as was the case with Araújo.

Foreign Affairs Minister (2019–21)

After the election of

as President of Brazil in October 2018, the newly promoted Ambassador Araújo was chosen to be the Foreign Minister in the new Administration. The choice was considered unusual. Araújo was not an influential member of Itamaraty, being described by '' The Economist'' as "hitherto-obscure diplomat", and got the job after a suggestion by Olavo de Carvalho. An anonymous group of Brazilian diplomats published a manifesto lamenting his appointment and claiming Araújo is "manifestly unprepared" and holds "ridiculous" and "absurd" opinions. Others, also speaking anonymously, described him as an "extremely scholarly man", with profound knowledge of ancient history. Araújo assumed office as foreign minister on 1 January 2019. On 8 January 2019, he asked diplomats to inform the UN that Brazil had withdrawn from the

Global Compact for Migration The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) is an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations, that describes itself as covering "all dimensions of international migration Int ...

. Araújo resigned from office on 29 March 2021, after pressure from Brazilian senators due to his behaviour with foreign partners, specifically China.

Positions

During the PT administrations, Araújo publicly supported the core elements of Lula da Silva's and Dilma Rousseff's foreign policy. In 2008, for instance, he criticized those who called their progressive agenda "ideological" and defended the right of

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

's Venezuela to be a member of Mercosur. More recently, he began to state opinions that apparently denied his own previous positions. In a 2017 article published by the International Relations Research Institute (IPRI), Araújo praised U.S. President Donald Trump for his nationalist rhetoric and holds that he is restoring Western values that have been challenged by

nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

, which he believes is the Western enemy that replaced communism. In the same article, he praises the self-declared

neo-fascist Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sent ...

political analyst Aleksandr Dugin, whose books, according to Araújo, "should be studied". According to Paulo Roberto de Almeida, a senior Brazilian diplomat, Araújo's apparent ideological U-turn was a "deliberate" move to please Olavo de Carvalho and "get the job" in the Bolsonaro administration. Araújo also maintains a blog entitled "Metapolitics 17 – Against Globalism", where he writes that

"is the economic globalization that has been driven by

" and that is "essentially anti-human and anti-Christian". On his blog, Araújo has also claimed that climate change is a "cultural Marxism" plot to undermine Western countries in order to support China's growth, and has also lamented the "criminalisation" of red meat, oil and heterosexual

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...

. He has also claimed that Nazism was a leftist movement. His statement was criticised by German historians and scholars, such as Stefanie Schüler-Springorum and Wulf Kansteiner, as "nonsense" and "scientifically absurd". He has called for Brazil to build a new alliance with the United States, Russia, Serbia, India, Italy,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and the Visegrád Group nations.

Personal life

Araújo was born in Porto Alegre on 15 May 1967. He graduated from the University of Brasília, where he studied linguistics and literature, and was trained as a diplomat at the Rio Branco Institute. Araújo is a practising Roman Catholic. His father, , worked as an Attorney General of the Brazilian military dictatorship. During his tenure, Henrique Fonseca de Araújo acted to prevent Gustav Franz Wagner, a Nazi official and deputy commander of the Sobibór extermination camp, from being extradited to Germany. After the War, Wagner had managed to escape to Brazil, where he died some years after having his extradition denied by the Brazilian dictatorship. In his blog, Araújo defended his father, saying that he was not a Nazi supporter and only acted according to the "rule of law".

References

External links

Profile at Wilson CenterPersonal Blog

Trump and the West
by Ernesto Araújo {{DEFAULTSORT:Araújo, Ernesto 1967 births Living people Anti-globalization writers Brazilian anti-communists Brazilian diplomats Brazilian Roman Catholics Brazilian conspiracy theorists Foreign ministers of Brazil People from Porto Alegre University of Brasília alumni Far-right politics in Brazil