Brazil says it will reject an offer of $20 million in international aid to stop the fires that have been burning across the Amazon rainforest.
According to the special communications office for Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, the country would turn down the money that was pledged at the G7 summit in France on Monday.
CNN reports that blazes in the Amazon have caused a public spat between Bolsonaro and French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been vocal about the need for an international response to the fires.
Bolsonaro’s chief of staff suggested that the aid should be used elsewhere instead.
“We are thankful, but maybe those resources would be more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni was quoted as saying by G1 Globo late Monday night.
The president said on Tuesday that he would only respond to the offer once Macron withdrew his insults of him.
He said the idea of creating an international alliance to save the Amazon would be treating Brazil like “a colony or no man’s land,” calling it an attack on the country’s sovereignty.
“Macron is unable to avoid a preventable fire in a church that is at a World Heritage Site and he wants to show us what is for our country? He has a lot to look after at home and the French colonies,”
“Brazil is a democratic nation, free and never had colonial or imperialistic practices which might be (the) objective of Frenchman Macron,”.
