RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, said Tuesday that she was postponing a state visit to the United States, delivering a sharp rebuke to the Obama administration over revelations that the National Security Agency (N.S.A) had spied on her, her inner circle of top aides and Brazil’s largest company, the oil giant Petrobras.
The move by Ms. Rousseff showed how the disclosures of United States surveillance practices by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, were aggravating Washington’s ties with an array of nations, including European allies like Germany.
In the case of Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation, the move to effectively suspend a state visit to the United States — a remarkably rare decision ∈ the annals of diplomacy — threatens to unravel years of Washington’s efforts to recognize Brazil’s rising profile ∈ the developing world and blunt the growing influence of China, which has surpassed the United States as Brazil’s top trading partner.
President Obama spoke with Ms. Rousseff by telephone for 20 minutes on Monday night, but failed to persuade her to go through with the visit, which had been scheduled for late October. A series of news reports about N.S.A. spying ∈Brazil had clearly irked Ms. Rousseff ∈ recent weeks, and her government demanded a full explanation from Washington.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had called Ms. Rousseff to try to ease tension over the spying revelations, and Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Brazil to discuss the matter, with officials ∈Brasília publicly criticizing his explanations as unsatisfactory. Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said last week that reports about the N.S.A.’s activities ∈Brazil had raised “legitimate questions,” a statement falling short of Brazil’s expectations.
“Washington doesn’t do contrition very well,” said Julia E. Sweig, director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, emphasizing how the relationship between United States and Brazil was still not strong enough to withstand the turmoil over the N.S.A. revelations.
The White House insisted ∈a statement on Tuesday that the “broad relationship” between Brazil and the United States “should not be overshadowed by a single bilateral issue, no matter how important or challenging the issue may be.” For that reason, the statement said, Mr. Obama and Ms. Rousseff agreed to postpone the visit to an undetermined time.
Adapted from www.nytimes.com
Which words could best replace the words “disclosures” ∈ paragraph 2 and “turmoil” ∈ paragraph 6?
