Brazil: The New Venezuela?

Is Brazil Joining the Axis of Evil? I’d be skeptical if anyone less than Bertil Lintner had written this, but Lintner has a well established history of finding out some rather amazing things that no one else can:

Recent indications are that Pyongyang has sought willing trade partners outside of Asia and its new closest commercial ally appears to be Brazil. Relations between the two countries have warmed considerably since leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president in January 2003.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported in October 2004 that North Korea planned to open an embassy in Brasilia, its fourth in the Latin and South American region after Havana, Cuba, Lima, Peru and Mexico City. On May 23, 2006, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and the Brazilian media reported that the two countries had signed a trade agreement.

More recently, the KCNA reported last December that a “protocol on the amendment to the trade agreement” had been signed in the capital Pyongyang. “Present at the signing ceremony from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea] side were Ri Ryong Nam, minister of foreign trade, and officials concerned and from the Brazilian side Arnaldo Carrilho, Brazilian ambassador to the DPRK, and embassy officials,” according to the news report.

China’s role in facilitating trade between Brazil and North Korea remains a matter of conjecture, but it is significant that the state mouthpiece Xinhua has eagerly reported on the warming of relations between the two countries. China remains Pyongyang’s most important base for all kinds of foreign trade – legitimate as well as more convoluted business transactions through front companies in Beijing and elsewhere. [Bertil Lintner, Asia Times]

Why Brazil? According to Lintner, it has its own nuclear ambitions, and so far, it’s not on any international sanctions lists. Worse, it’s also partnering up with Iran. Brazil also shares a part of the notorious tri-border area, which has become notorious for money laundering and terrorist financing. I can’t imagine that Lula’s rise to power has improved Brazil’s cooperation in this area, either.