On the eve of concluding his second year of his third term, the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) faces a delicate global scenario, with the return to power of Donald Trump in the United States, wars involving Russia and Ukraine and the increasing escalation in the Middle East, with Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and conflicts against groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The diagnosis of the size of the Brazilian government’s foreign policy challenges was made by the traditional British newspaper Financial Timesone of the most influential in the world, in an extensive report published this Wednesday (13).
The periodical lists a series of international obstacles that Brazil has had or will have to face, listens to experts who attest to the troubled global panorama and draws comparisons between Lula’s first two terms (2003-2010) and the current situation.
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According to the Financial Times“Brazil’s efforts to take advantage of the changing geopolitical landscape face challenges.” “Lula’s attempt to act as a regional power and mediate the political crisis in Venezuela failed”, points out the report, citing the Venezuelan political crisis and the impasse surrounding the fraudulent election of dictator Nicolás Maduro, not recognized to this day by the Brazilian government. .
“Brazil, which prides itself on its own transition from dictatorship to democracy, has been uncomfortable with efforts by Russia and China to make the BRICS group more openly anti-Western. And the election of Donald Trump in the USA will probably complicate Lula’s plan to demonstrate his climate diplomacy”, projects the newspaper.
“The country, analysts say, now finds itself forced to navigate a much more complicated international scenario, in which its traditional neutrality may be under pressure from all sides,” states the British daily.
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Russia, Ukraine and Israel
Since the beginning of his third term, Lula has made it clear, on numerous occasions, that he does not align himself with the majority position among the great European powers due to the emphatic condemnation of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in the war against Ukraine.
“The country’s stance has sometimes caused concern in Washington and Brussels. Lula’s desire to play peacemaker in the Ukraine war angered Kiev’s supporters, who accused him of favoring Russia, especially when he welcomed Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Brasilia in April 2023”, recalled the Financial Times.
“Even before his election, the president angered Ukraine’s European and American allies by suggesting that Kiev was also to blame for the conflict, along with Moscow,” the newspaper continues. “After Lula suggested that Washington was prolonging the war by supplying weapons to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council accused Brasilia of ‘parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda’.”
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According to the British newspaper, “although he may be unpopular in much of the West, Lula’s position on Ukraine is widely shared across the developing world”. “Nations such as India, China, Mexico and South Africa agree with his view that the US and Europe should seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict, rather than sending increasingly powerful weapons to Ukraine and impose draconian economic sanctions on Moscow,” says the report.
Lula’s stance against Israel’s reaction – which he deemed “disproportionate” – to Hamas attacks also provoked apprehension and some perplexity among European countries and the USA, notes the FT.
“In the same vein, Lula’s comparison of Israel’s military action in Gaza with the Holocaust may have highlighted differences with Washington and led the Israeli government to declare it persona non grata. But it is much more in line with the positions of G20 developing countries, such as India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, which have presented an allegation of genocide against Israel at the UN’s highest court”, explains the newspaper. .
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In the report published this Wednesday, the Financial Times recalls Lula’s first two terms, between 2003 and 2010, in which he had the ability to “build bridges” with the most disparate leaders possible, such as the then US president George W. Bush (of the Republican Party, like Trump), and the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez (1954-2013), with whom he established a close personal relationship.
“During his first period as president, Lula used the pragmatism honed as a union negotiator to build bridges between the developed and developing worlds. He cultivated good working relationships across the political spectrum, from US President George W. Bush to the late Venezuelan revolutionary socialist leader Hugo Chávez,” the text says. “In a world facing multiple wars and a climate crisis, these skills are even more in demand”, adds the FT.
Latin America
According to the newspaper, “Lula also encountered considerable diplomatic challenges on his own doorstep.” The ‘pink tide’ of Latin American governments, mainly on the left, in which he swam in his first two terms, was replaced by a more antagonistic regional scenario”, states the report.
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“Conservative governments in neighboring Argentina and Paraguay, as well as Ecuador and El Salvador, clashed with the left-wing presidents of Chile, Colombia and Mexico. Few are willing to submit to Lula, the veteran standard-bearer of the Latin American left,” says the newspaper.
“After Brazilian requests for evidence of his victory to be shown produced months of obstruction by Maduro, Lula refused to recognize the election result [na Venezuela]. Given the long-standing political ties between Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) and Maduro’s PSUV revolutionary socialist movement, this was a result that few expected”, points out the publication, still about the political crisis in Venezuela.
Climate change and G20
In the report, the Financial Times states that “there is a broad consensus that the issue of climate change is where Brazil has the most potential – and moral authority – to exercise diplomatic leadership”.
“Deforestation in the Amazon fell drastically under Lula, and the country already generates most of its electricity from renewable sources and is a leader in biofuels”, highlights the text.
“In Rio, next week, Brazil should formally launch an international alliance against hunger, a topic dear to Lula, given his childhood experience with poverty”, continues the publication, in reference to the G20 summit.
“Another key proposal from his G20 presidency is a global tax on the super-rich. Although the US threw cold water on the idea, Brazil believes that its time will come.”
Finally, the Financial Times warns of the risk that Trump’s future presidency in the greatest political and economic power on the planet could pose to some of the Brazilian government’s most expensive foreign policy ambitions.
“What should have been Lula’s moment to shine now runs the risk of being overshadowed by Trump’s election as US president,” says the FT. “The Republican’s skepticism about global warming and disdain for multilateralism threaten some of Brazil’s main foreign policy goals, according to analysts.”
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