The president also alluded to changes in the trade policies of the great powers, without naming them.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on a visit to Europe, defended multilateralism in Lisbon this Tuesday (21) and stated that the Brazil seeks to maintain trade relations “with China, with the United States, with Russia, with France. (…) No preference”.
“As we are not in favor of the second Cold War (…), we have no commercial preference”, declared the president after a meeting with the Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro.
“We want to have relations with China, with the United States, with Russia, with France. We want with the whole world, without preference. What we want is multilateralism and a lot of peace to negotiate”, he added.
Lula also did allusion to changes in trade policies of the great powers, without naming them.
In the 1980s, “the most fantastic thing was free trade, it was globalization (…). In Brazil, we were kind of against it”, he observed, citing the country’s lack of competitiveness.
“When we started to like free trade, those who became protectionists, those who in the 80s wanted free trade”, he continued.
Lula has scheduled a meeting for later with his Portuguese counterpart, António José Seguro, elected to the position in March, whose role is primarily symbolic, as an arbitrator.
Outside the presidential palace, The leader of the Portuguese extreme right, André Ventura, joined, this Tuesday, a small group of demonstrators to protest against Lula’s visitwhom he accuses of “corruption”.
Simultaneously, a counter-demonstration in support of the Brazilian president was also held nearby, organized by the Portuguese branch of the Workers’ Party (PT), Lula’s political party.
The 80-year-old Brazilian president began a European tour last week, also visiting Spain and Germany.
