Brazilian Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday that Brazil's farming sector is worried that President Jair Bolsonaro's plan to move the Brazilian Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem could hurt the country's export of halal meat to Muslim countries.
"Of course the agricultural sector that I represent is worried," Dias told Reuters, when asked about possible repercussions for trade with Arab countries if the embassy were to be moved.
"Brazil cannot lose markets, we need to open new markets," she said.
Bolsonaro is expected to arrive in Israel on March 31 for a four-day visit, just one week ahead of the Knesset election on April 9.
In closed talks with Bolsonaro during a historic visit to the South American country in late December, the Brazilian leader reiterated to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his intention to relocate the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem.
During the scheduled visit, Bolsonaro might also officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Bolsonaro and many of his top aides have repeatedly indicated that Brazil would soon relocate its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. But Bolsonaro has come under pressure from powerful backers in the agricultural sector to abandon the embassy relocation idea.
The Arab League has warned Bolsonaro that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be a setback for relations with Arab countries.
Such a move by Bolsonaro would be a sharp shift in Brazilian foreign policy, just as it was for the United States when U.S. President Donald Trump relocated the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in May.
Brazil has traditionally backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem, parts of which the Palestinians envision as the capital of a future state, would be seen as an affront.
