By: Daniel Kersffeld/
On January 1, Lula da Silva finally assumed the government of Brazil in what will be his third presidential term. It is undeniable that his presence at the head of the main South American power is a welcome breath of fresh air after the disastrous experiment carried out by Jair Bolsonaro, in one of the most violent versions of neoliberalism in recent times.
Several political and journalistic statements noted that the new PT mandate could be conducive to recreating and updating an ever-present ideology of regional integration.
The bric
Similarly, and in the case of a nation with levels of influence beyond the South American limits, the willingness to engage in dialogue in international contexts such as that offered by the BRICS was also signaled, above all with powers such as China and India and even in scenarios very distant from Latin American reality such as the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
It remains to be seen how Lula will pursue a sovereign foreign policy, from a regional perspective, without automatic alignments and, therefore, in open defiance of the United States, the main pole of international power.
In other words, how a multipolar paradigm is built as a central premise for Brazil’s development internationally. However, currently and in political terms, the main problem for the new Brazilian president is not the US government. More: it could be said that today between Lula and Joe Biden the coincidences are more important than the differences. It would not be strange if an alliance, at least tactical, were formed between the two presidents.
The same problem
In fact, both presidents are not only close in ideological terms, but are at the head of governments with moderate and radical sectors. After all, for the two rulers the central problem is the same, with domestic characteristics, but with a clear international projection: the right led by Donald Trump and his Brazilian ally Jair Bolsonaro.
Thus, in political terms, and ever since there were fears that Bolsonaro would not recognize the results of the presidential elections, an increasingly solid alliance was forged in 2022 between democratic deputies and PT leaders, which has expanded to include also the military high command and the government of the United States.
In this sense, the fear of a military uprising in the south of the continent that could be supported by Trump, and the electoral agreement between the left-wing leader and Brazilian businessmen, have undoubtedly favored dialogue and mutual understanding between the two nations.
Contact with Sullivan
Once the Workers’ Party-led alliance won the second round of elections on Oct. 30, ties between the democratic administration and Brazil’s elected government were quickly oiled. In fact, on December 5, a substantial step forward was taken when a two-hour meeting was held in Brasilia between Lula and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser and one of Joe Biden’s main swords in all this concerning the management of foreign policy.
In addition to local issues, Lula and Sullivan held dialogue on topics as diverse as the internal situation in Venezuela and Haiti and the future of democracy in the region, while progress was also made on global issues such as climate change and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
From that meeting it clearly emerged that the democratic government will consider Brazil as the main bridge to South America, a region that in recent years will be marked by the emergence of progressive and leftist presidents not always aligned with Washington’s politics.
The environmental agenda
One of the central points between the Biden administration and the new Lula government will be environmental policy which will give priority to the reforestation of the Amazon, after the combination of negligence and economic calculation manifested by Bolsonaro which caused the loss of 60% of forests and woodlands of that region.
The change of course, in line with the democratic environmental agenda and in the face of traditional agro-industrial interests, began to be visible from the state organization chart itself, with the reformulation of the Ministries of the Environment and of Indigenous Peoples, while the multinational Petrobras would move to focus gradually on renewable energy sources, thus replacing oil and gas extractivism.
Brazil will therefore try to fulfill two central requests of the Biden government: it will be its main ally in the progressive agenda to fight climate change and it will tend to become the ordering axis of South American politics. For his part, Lula will take advantage of this situation to insert Brazil into the broader global debate, to position himself as a facilitator and even mediator in complex scenarios that could eventually surpass his international influence.
For now, Lula will be able to measure how much the White House will be able to tolerate its own national interest in the face of the concrete possibility of negotiating broader trade terms with China, its main trading partner, in a highly lucrative relationship for the Brazil which has grown in recent years despite the clear opposition of the previous president Bolsonaro.
Likewise, the degree of autonomy that the government of Brazil can build at the level of its foreign policy will also serve to assess the degree of external influence, the capacity for leadership and, above all, for control and containment, to be applied by Washington. A complex relationship that, no doubt, various governments around the world will be contemplating with the utmost attention.
