Brazil's president takes indirect swipe at Biden

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Brazil's president is one of the few leaders around the world to have not congratulated U.S. president-elect Joe Biden on his win.

Bolsonaro, as well as the heads of Russia, China, and Mexico, are all yet to send their well wishes to Biden.

Instead, Bolsonaro made an indirect swipe on Tuesday at the new U.S. president-elect, who he thinks will take a tougher approach to the climate crisis.

Biden is expected to put Amazon deforestation and human rights at the top of his agenda with Brazil.

"I recently heard a presidential candidate from a country say that if I don't put out the fire in the Amazon he is going to raise trade barriers against Brazil. How do we deal with all of that? Diplomacy is not enough. When there is no more saliva, then there must be gunpowder."

Brazil's populist president also hit out at hysteria around the global pandemic.

He argued on Monday that his country should toughen up:

"...All of us are going to die one day, everyone is going to die, you are going to die one day. There is no point in escaping from that, escaping from reality. We have to stop being a country of sissies..."

As of Tuesday, Brazil has recorded more than 163,000 deaths from Covid-19, and some 5.7 million cases.

It's the third worst affected country in the world, after the United States and India.