The visit to Washington of the Brazilian president Lula, just re-elected for his third full term, to his US counterpart Joe Biden. And the meeting, in his own way, lived up to expectations: it was an opportunity to re-establish strong relations between the two giants of North and South America, which had cooled off a bit in the dark years of the presidencies of Trump and Bolsonaro, who got along well but had both isolated themselves from the international community. With the victory of Biden and then the return of Lula, Brazil is once again the protagonist on the global scene, in a delicate moment between war in Ukraine, climate and migration emergencies, inflation and geopolitical repositioning.
Biden-Lula: different positions on the war in Ukraine
It is precisely for these reasons that the meeting, albeit formally positive, ultimately reserved more shadows than lights. The first reason for tension was obviously the war in Ukraine: Lula has always held an ambiguous position on the subject, opposing the sending of weaponry to support the Ukrainian resistance and also declaring himself against the sanctions against Russia. The Brazilian president even intends to promote a "peace club”, a forum of neutral countries that includes China, India and Turkey, and after confessing it to Biden he will also talk about it in person with Xi Jinping, on the occasion of his visit to Beijing scheduled for March. In Brasilia the prevailing opinion is that involve China in the negotiations, which is by far Brazil's first trading partner (worth 27% of exports), is simply inevitable.
Biden has always been cold on this and has been a proponent of the unconditional support for Kiev, in defense of NATO borders. And indeed he would have asked his Latin American counterpart to provide ammunition for tanks sent to Ukraine from Germany. Request rejected, just as his predecessor Bolsonaro had rejected: i Russian fertilizers sustain 30% of the Brazilian agri-food market, and it is therefore better not to go against Putin, considering that among the main products exported by Brazil there are soy (which is the first), corn and beef. But aware of the fact that the US is still the third trading partner after China and the European Union (11% of exports, for 37 billion dollars), Lula avoided the tear: the diplomats agreed not to mention the discrepancy in the joint press release, limiting themselves more generally to mentioning the close collaboration between the two countries on global challenges.
Biden-Lula: the US enters the Amazon Fund
A cold synthesis, just as the Brazilian reaction to the announcement, made by Biden himself, of theUS entry into the Amazon Fund, an aid program aimed at protecting the planet's lungs, to which only Germany and Norway had contributed until today. The news in itself would be epochal, but what disappointed Brasilia was the amount assumed by the US administration: just $50 million, while the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the occasion of the recent trip to Brazil, he announced aid for 200 million of euros and the only one Norway, which has participated in the fund since its creation in 2008 (suspending funding under the presidency of Bolsonaro), has promised the Lula government the equivalent of over half a billion euros. However, there is good news for the Amazon: the US commitment will be minimal but will pave the way for ad other accessions, including that of the European Union, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
