Saudis scale back chicken imports from Brazil amid Jerusalem tensions

Saudi Arabia is considerably reducing its dependence on chicken imports from Brazil, in what a meat association described as a “technical move,” and a local media report in the Latin American country speculated could be linked to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s intention to relocate his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

According to reports on Tuesday, the kingdom has revoked the export permits of 33 of the 58 chicken manufacturers in Brazil it previously recognized. Meat trade association ABPA maintained the suspensions were “technical,” according to Reuters.

“Corrective action is being taken to restore the authorizations,” ABPA, also known as the Brazilian Animal Protein Association, said.

In Brazil’s lucrative poultry and meat export trade, Saudi Arabia is the top buyer of chicken, importing some 433,500 tons in 2018, according to the news agency.

The Brazilian Folha de S. Paulo newspaper suggested the move could be linked to Bolsonaro’s growing willingness to relocate Brasilia’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It did not cite a source.

An embassy move could put at risk lucrative Brazilian poultry and halal meat exports to Arab countries, which fiercely oppose any unilateral moves seen as cementing Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital.

Nearly 20 percent of Brazil’s $5 billion beef exports go to 17 Arab countries. Brazil-Israel trade currently amounts to $1.2 billion.

Earlier this month, Bolsonaro confirmed he will move his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and said the main nation objecting to that is Iran, not Arab countries. Bolsonaro, speaking in an interview to SBT television, said: “The decision is taken, it’s only a matter of when it will be implemented.”

Bolsonaro, a far-right former paratrooper intent on forging close ties with the US and Israel, signaled before taking office that he planned to follow President Donald Trump’s lead in moving Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem. But after meat exporters raised fears of losing business with Arab countries, he appeared to row back, saying “it is not yet decided.”

In his SBT interview in early January, Bolsonaro said he did not think that most Arab countries would take reprisals against Brazil.

Some of the “more radical” Arab nations “might adopt some sort of sanction — I hope only economic ones — against us,” he said.

Only the United States and Guatemala currently have their embassies in Jerusalem, while other countries have theirs in Tel Aviv.