Gone are the days when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) made Brazilians laugh by making jokes about the G-spot in the presence of an American leader, in his case George W. Bush in 2007.
Lula lived with Barack Obama, who called him “the guy”, but his personal chemistry really worked with the Geni of the progressive world, the Republican Bush, the invader of Iraq.
Now, third time president, it was the turn to face the Democrat’s former vice president, Joe Biden.
Armed with an arsenal based on his publicized South-South policy in his first two terms, Lula was right to bet on what could generate common denominators with Biden: environment and democracy.
The talk about climate and the discussion about the Amazon Fund are diplomatic goals played in the field itself. If there is a theme about which Brazil has a place of speech in the world, it is this one. Lula’s second letter, the defense of democratic mechanisms, came about with an ungrateful stroke of luck, the violation of the headquarters of the three Powers by coup vandals on January 8, basically to ask for the PT’s deposition.
It was the same as Biden suffered two years earlier. The vandals aped an analogous attack on the Capitol, following the sedition script left by the Democrat’s predecessor and rival, Donald Trump.
Idol of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the former American leader made up a perfect scenario for the hand in hand of Lula and the current occupant of the White House, already demonstrated in the resolute American support for the Brazilian electoral system under attack.
But that’s all for now, as is natural for a visit in a hurry to guarantee a symbolic photograph. Biden is an old acquaintance of Brazil, having flattened the ground when the progressive Obama spied on Dilma Rousseff (PT) and other world leaders. But that time has passed, and his agenda is very different.
Thus, the Lula idea that it is possible to resolve the War in Ukraine with the formation of a working group was obviously not taken seriously in Washington. Biden really wanted Lula to sell the ammunition for old tanks that Germany wants to pass on to Kiev.
Not doing so follows the Itamaraty line of non-intervention and preserves the supply of Russian fertilizers, which own 30% of the Brazilian market. Reaffirming the condemnation of the invasion, already voted in the UN, is sold as a concession, but that’s all. Everything is a game played, including by Bolsonaro before Lula.
Even the former Brazilian president was held back when Trump asked him for help in getting his hands dirty with military action against Venezuela. The problem for Lula is the insistence on a relevance that was already illusory in the 2000s. The memory of the failure of the nuclear deal with Iran should be in his memory.
The same is true of China, Biden’s true strategic opponent. While dropping balloons suspected of Beijing from its skies, and with them the recent rapprochement with the Asian colossus, the US is trying to define who will be on whose side when Cold War 2.0 reaches new heights.
Ukraine’s conflict is the beginning, with its Western sanctions regime to punish Vladimir Putin. The world today already has embryonic blocs, one led by the West and the other by Xi Jinping.
This is the central dilemma of Lula’s foreign policy, which for the time being has been postponed within the established limits. Visits to Biden and Xi, in the sequence, try to signal an equidistance that is increasingly difficult to sustain. But it is possible to bet that the PT will be more comfortable in Beijing, in tune with the Brazilian diplomatic line today.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
