Summary:
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The next president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will meet with Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday.
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They both worked with unions and are committed to fighting climate change.
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People also liked how quickly the White House spoke out against the unrest in Brasilia on January 8.
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“The US wants Brazil to become more allied with NATO, but Lula will not comply.”
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According to a senior Brazilian diplomat, disputes like the one over the Ukraine conflict are “quite regular,” Washington is already aware of Brazil’s “traditional posture” of neutrality.
The next president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will meet with Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday. They will work to “repair” relations between their countries, which have been very tense during Jair Bolsonaro’s last years in power.
According to a senior member of the Brazilian foreign ministry, Bolsonaro treated then-US President Donald Trump “almost like a groupie.” He said that when he took office in 2021, Biden “completely calmed down” the relationship between the two countries. It’s time to pick it up and return to work.
People think that Lula, on the left, and Biden have more in common politically than Bolsonaro, on the far right. This is because they both worked with unions and are committed to fighting climate change.
The discussions on Friday are expected to center on environmental preservation and how to combat far-right extremism. Since protesters who support Bolsonaro took over Brazil’s political institutions last month, this topic has gotten more attention.
The two most populous countries in the Americas will also have to deal with more complex matters, such as Bolsonaro’s continued presence in Florida and Lula’s stance of non-intervention in the Ukraine war.
“The bond between Lula and Biden is still developing.” Thiago de Arago, managing director of the political consulting firm Arko Public Affairs in Washington, says that Trump and Bolsonaro had similar experiences with their former coworkers. They also both wanted to help the environment through diplomacy, he says.
“Conditions had already forged them into closer comrades before [the encounter].” He said they would talk a lot about defending democracy and what happened on January 6 and 8, referring to the attacks on the US Capitol in 2021 and on Brasilia this year.
Lula’s trip to Washington is his second trip outside of Brazil since he took office in January. He went there after visiting Argentina and Uruguay. It is part of his drive to restore Brazil’s diplomatic clout following the Bolsonaro era’s relative isolationism.
During the two years that Biden and the far-right Bolsonaro were in power, with little significant engagement between the two nations, relations between Brazil and Washington nearly ended.
Diplomats from Brazil say that when Bolsonaro’s supporters questioned the election results in October, the Lula government was encouraged by how quickly the White House acknowledged his victory.
People also liked how quickly the White House spoke out against the unrest in Brasilia on January 8. This was seen as sending a strong message around the world.
Professor of international relations at the University of So Paulo, Felipe Loureiro, said, “There is a lot of positive energy between the two sides.”
He thought that the Ukraine War and Lula’s views on neutrality and not getting involved would be the most difficult parts of the talks. The German government asked Berlin last month to sell tank ammunition that could be used in the crisis in Ukraine, but the Brazilian president refused.
“The US wants Brazil to become more allied with NATO, but Lula will not comply.” According to Loureiro, Lula is adamant about keeping Brazil impartial to aid in negotiations.
In the same way, he said, Lula would be “conscientious” about joining any US-led effort that China might see as a strategic alliance against Beijing.
According to a senior Brazilian diplomat, disputes like the one over the Ukraine conflict are “quite regular,” and Washington is already aware of Brazil’s “traditional posture” of neutrality.
The official continued, “We are prepared to participate in whatever effort is organised by the world community to find a way forward to stop this war.”
The ongoing presence of Bolsonaro on US soil will cloud the meeting between the two presidents. The former army captain departed Brazil in late December to miss Lula’s inauguration. Since then, he has been living in Orlando, Florida. In Brazil, many investigations are going on about his time in office and how he might have been involved in the attacks in Brasilia.
The longer he stays in the US, some political observers predict, but Loureiro said that “holding Bolsonaro accountable will be incredibly vital for the Lula government.”
As having “something to do with a private citizenship and another government,” the senior diplomat disregarded the problem.
