President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) made indirect criticisms of the United States government’s policies in his first participation in the G7 Summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, this Tuesday (16).
Speaking practically face to face with Donald Trump, who was sitting on the opposite side of a large oval table, Lula criticized protectionism and unilateralism and defended respect for the sovereignty of States in the fight against transnational crime.
These were references to the recent decisions of the US government to threaten Brazil and other countries with and to unilaterally classify the Red Command and the PCC as terrorist entities.
At no point did Lula directly mention the United States or Trump.
“Neoliberalism has worsened the economic inequality and political crisis that are plaguing democracies today. Now, protectionism and unilateralism are resurfacing as fallacious responses to the complexity of our problems”, said Lula when defending greater cooperation between countries to help with the development of countries in the so-called Global South.
Afterwards, the Brazilian president took the opportunity to criticize inequality and what he classified as a lack of political will to reduce it.
“In recent years, inequality between rich and poor countries has increased. The world’s first trillionaire is richer than the poorest 46% of the world’s population. The extreme concentration of wealth stems from decades of pro-billionaire policies,” he said.
The Brazilian leader also stated that the fight against transnational crimes and drug trafficking “must be part of the development agenda”.
In this excerpt of the speech, Lula made the second indirect criticism of Trump and his decision to classify Brazilian criminal groups as terrorists, a decision that was opposed by the Brazilian government precisely because it ignored the country’s laws on this matter.
Lula stated that this fight must be carried out through more international cooperation, including actions by Interpol.
Just before the speech, the photo session with the G7 leaders. At the time, the two spoke briefly with other leaders and did not greet each other.
