Brazil president, Dilma Rousseff, has postponed her trip to the United States over the news that the National Security Agency was spying on her.
According to The New York Times, the president's postponement is unsurprising after it came out that she, her top aides and oil company Petrobras, were spied upon.
To actually postpone a diplomatic visit is quite unusual and shows just how much the NSA disclosures from Edward Snowden are hurting the U.S. diplomatically with other countries.
President Barack Obama called Rousseff Monday night, trying to convince her to not postpone the visit, but was unsuccessful. The knowledge of Brazil being spied upon is not sitting well with the country.
Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry have also tried easing the tensions between the two countries over the NSA incident. They also have not had much luck.
Julia E. Sweig, director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "Washington doesn't do contrition very well."
TIME reports that Brazil was one of the countries that was heavily spied upon by the NSA, leaving the Latin American country irked.
Rouseff's visit was to be the first such visit during Obama's second term in office to show "Brazil's economic, political and diplomatic rise in the world," senior director of policy for the Council of the Americas, Christopher Sabatani, told TIME.
image: Wikimedia Commons
