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WorldWar In Ukraine Africa Americas Asia Europe Middle East Foreign
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Americas


THE WEST HOPED LULA WOULD BE A PARTNER. HE’S GOT HIS OWN PLANS.


BRAZIL’S NEW PRESIDENT RISKS ALIENATING THE U.S. AND EUROPE AS HE HOSTS IRANIAN
WARSHIPS, EQUIVOCATES OVER THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE AND NEGOTIATES WITH
CHINA

By Moriah Balingit
and 
Meaghan Tobin
April 13, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EDT

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and President Biden at the White
House on Feb. 10. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

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BRASÍLIA — In his first months in office, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva has declined to join President Biden in condemning the Russian invasion
of Ukraine, allowed Iranian warships to dock in Rio de Janeiro and dispatched a
senior adviser to meet with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.


Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s
war in Ukraine.ArrowRight


On Friday, Lula will head to Beijing, the finale of a three-day trip to China.
More than 200 Brazilian business leaders headed to China ahead of Lula’s arrival
to hash out a flurry of deals that will bring Brazil closer to its largest
trading partner at a time when relations between Washington and Beijing have
grown increasingly tense. Lula’s schedule will include a stop at a Shanghai
facility of Huawei, the telecommunications giant that has been subject to U.S.
sanctions.



In the Chinese capital, Lula will meet with Xi Jinping, the country’s top
leader, who is pushing to upend the U.S.-led international order and position
China as a diplomatic power broker. Brasília, meanwhile, is helping Beijing
boost its currency, the yuan, over the dollar.

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Lula’s election victory last year over Jair Bolsonaro, the dictatorship-admiring
former military officer who aligned himself with President Donald Trump and the
global right wing, buoyed optimism that Latin America’s most populous nation
could be a partner in promoting democratic norms in the Western Hemisphere and
beyond.

But instead, Lula is reminding the world of his approach to foreign policy —
which, in keeping with his first stint in office, prioritizes pragmatism and
dialogue, and shows little concern over whether it antagonizes Washington or the
West.

One example: the Russian invasion. Brazil supported a U.N. resolution in
February calling for peace and demanding Moscow withdraw troops from Ukraine.
But weeks later, Lula refused to sign on to a declaration from President Biden’s
Summit for Democracy that condemned Russia’s assault on its neighbor. A senior
adviser said Lula did not believe the forum was the appropriate place to discuss
the war.

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In contrast with Bolsonaro’s pugnacious isolationism, Lula has long sought to
expand Brazil’s role on the world stage. He argues that Brazil, home to more
people than U.N. Security Council permanent members Russia, Britain and France,
should be granted membership in that elite club.

“Brazil wants to reform world governance,” Celso Amorim, a senior adviser to the
president, told The Washington Post. “We would like to have a world governance
which does not look like the present Security Council.”



As Brazil’s president from 2003 through 2010, Lula pursued a multipolar world
order that would support the world’s fastest-growing economies without requiring
them to embrace specific political values. In 2009, alongside fellow leaders
Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, China’s Hu Jintao and India’s Manmohan Singh, Lula
attended the first summit of the BRICS — the large and developing economies of
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which cast themselves as a foil
to the Group of Seven most advanced economies.

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The BRICS launched their own financing institution, the New Development Bank, in
2015 as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund. The United Arab
Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh joined in 2021, while Egypt became a member
last month. Lula was set to celebrate Brazil’s continued leadership role in the
bloc on Thursday when his successor as president, Dilma Rousseff, is inaugurated
head of the bank at its headquarters in Shanghai.

China and Brazil have portrayed their ties to each other — and to Russia — as
being of growing global consequence. In an interview with state media Tuesday,
China’s ambassador to Brazil, Zhu Qingqiao, described the BRICS as “a catalyst
for changing the global governance system.”

None of the BRICS countries currently impose sanctions on Russia. Increased
trade between Russia and China in particular has helped take some of the bite
out of Western sanctions, and Beijing has leveraged conditions to push more
companies to trade in the yuan — in some cases enabling them to bypass the
dollar altogether.

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Brazil relies on Russia as the top supplier of fertilizer to its agricultural
sector, which fuels its booming exports to China. Russia’s trade with both
Brazil and China hit record highs in 2022.

Hours before Lula’s arrival in Shanghai, Chinese state media reported that a
Brazilian branch of a Chinese state-owned bank had settled its first
cross-border transaction in the Chinese currency. Brazil’s central bank
announced this month that the yuan had overtaken the euro as the country’s
second largest international reserve currency.

“We are seeing more and more capacity on the part of China to act as a viable
alternative [to the West] and to develop diplomatic alliances that underscore
that point,” said Margaret Myers, director of the Asia and Latin America program
at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “The BRICS is
increasingly playing that role, and Lula, as a founder of the group, will be
inclined to reinforce that vision.”

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Lula is also scheduled to meet with representatives of the Chinese electric car
manufacturer BYD, which is seeking to take over a former Ford plant in the
northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.



Lula has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine also bears responsibility for the war
— by defending itself. “If one doesn’t want to, two can’t fight,” said Lula at a
January news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to
Politico.

During a virtual meeting in March with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
Lula reiterated his recent calls for a “peace club” of nonaligned countries to
mediate between Russia and Ukraine. The idea did not gain much traction in
Washington when Lula visited Biden in February.

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In Beijing, Lula is hoping for a welcome as warm as those he received on two
state visits to China during his first stint as president, when he enjoyed a
particularly close relationship with then-leader Hu.

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Brazil’s economy boomed during Lula’s first presidency, thanks in large part to
soaring commodities prices and sales to China. There was virtually no trade
between the two countries when Lula took office in 2003; six years later, China
was Brazil’s top trading partner. Last year, that trade volume topped $150
billion, according to Brazilian government statistics, mainly in agricultural
commodities such as beef and soybeans.

Brazilian government ministers and business leaders, including executives from
Brazil’s top beef and soy exporters, traveled to China last month to make deals
with Chinese companies. After a meeting between Brazilian Agriculture Minister
Carlos Fávaro and Chinese Customs Minister Yu Jianhua, Beijing formally lifted a
ban on Brazilian beef that Brazil had voluntarily imposed in February after
reporting a case of mad cow disease. During the 29-day suspension, Brazilian
beef exporters said they lost up to $25 million a day, according to local media.

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The Chinese customs authority also approved exports from nine additional beef
and poultry processing plants, and another 50 are under review, Chinese business
media outlet Caixin reported Wednesday.

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Other agreements are expected to involve Chinese investment in high-tech
capacity in Brazil, including solar power facilities and a new observation
satellite that can monitor the Amazon rainforest even during cloudy weather.

Climate change is also likely on the agenda. Xi has articulated a Chinese
commitment to reducing carbon emissions; Lula has promised to reverse
deforestation in the Amazon, after Bolsonaro promoted development there.



“Lula can say for now, ‘I’m all about reconstruction. Brazil is back,’” said
Oliver Stuenkel, a political scientist at the School of International Relations
at Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo. “We’re a constructive interlocutor when
it comes to strength in the multilateral system. We want to be a provider of
global public goods when it comes to fighting climate change.”

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Beijing has hailed Lula’s visit as a chance to not only deepen the countries’
economic ties but also advance Xi’s push to position China as a leader of a
world order that isn’t constrained by Washington. That drive has also included
brokering a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Beijing and
articulating 12 principles to end hostilities in Ukraine.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin this week called Lula’s visit an
opportunity to “bring more positive energy to developing countries’ solidarity,
cooperation and joint response to global challenges.”

Lula, too, has promoted himself as a potential mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.

This month, he sent Amorim, the presidential adviser, to meet with Russian
President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Before the trip, Amorim — Brazil’s former
foreign minister — told The Post he believed a diplomatic resolution to the war
was possible.

Lula’s government believes in dialogue and leading by example, Amorim said.

But asked whether Brazil would play a role in enforcing democratic norms, Amorim
replied: “Enforcing is a bad word.”

Tobin reported from Taipei, Taiwan. Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this
report.

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