From Brasilia
One month and two days after the frustrated coup that tried to overthrow him, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be received this Friday by Joe Biden a Washington. The summit’s agenda includes the defense of democracy, projects to mitigate deforestation in the Amazon, and investments. It is not ruled out that Lula and Biden talk about the war in Ukraine and, in principle, the immigration status of Jair Bolsonaro, established since the end of December in the state of Florida, is excluded from the agenda. “I will meet with President Biden at the White House, we want to rebuild our relations for the growth of our countries and the development of our region,” the president tweeted minutes before boarding this Thursday at ten in the morning in Brasilia, wearing a blue jacket and dark shirt.
besieged democracies
Both Lula and Biden urgently want to join efforts against the neo-fascist advance that in Brazil is under the command of Bolsonaro and in the United States by former President Donald Trump. The Brazilian received a call of support from Biden on January 9, 24 hours after the rebellion in which thousands of Bolsonaristas looted the Planalto palaces, the Congress and the Federal Supreme Court, in the center of Brasilia, demanding a military intervention. The message of the phone was clear: Washington will not admit a coup.
There was another call from the White House on October 31, in which Biden acknowledged Lula’s victory in the elections against Bolsonaro, who to this day continues to question his defeat alleging fraud (Trump’s argument to question the victory of Biden in 2020).
At this Friday’s meeting, it is to be expected that the presidents will speak out in defense of the rule of law and respect for popular sovereignty expressed at the polls. He transcended that Lula will propose the regulation of social platforms and networks. “Those who proclaim evil through the Internet cannot enjoy the facilities to do so, this discussion cannot be in one country, it has to be in all countries because it is a global problem,” Lula stated. Her intention is to seek some consensus with Biden on how to put limits on big techs before presenting the idea within the UN, the G20 – of which he will be president in 2024 – and the BRICS group.
Biden 2016
Biden’s current commitment to defending democracy is vital for Lula, whose victory over the January 8 coup does not mean the end of the sedidious movement. But it is true that the current position of the president of the Democratic Party differs from his attitude in 2016, when he was vice president and a coup overthrew the Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and seated in the main chair of the Planalto Michel Temer. The photo taken in September 2016 of a smiling Biden greeting another equally smiling Temer was an endorsement for the illegitimate government.
historical moment
For the geopolitical researcher Martin Jacques de Novion This Friday’s summit will be a milestone in relations between Brasilia and Washington by “refounding, rebuilding, rebuilding” the link after years of estrangement due to disagreements between Biden and Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian captain never ceased to be a Republican Trump lieutenant and as such maintained a belligerent position against Biden. The meeting at the White House will be a watershed, a “historic” moment in this relationship of almost 200 years, De Novion states, in dialogue with Page 12.
Lula will arrive this Friday at 5:30 p.m. in Argentina at the Oval Office proposing an end to the war in Ukraine. It is feasible that from Washington he will launch his proposal to create a dialogue table to achieve a ceasefire and create a negotiating table between Moscow and kyiv, which should include China, India and eventually Brazil. Showing his anti-war vocation, Lula recently announced the end of arms exports to Ukraine. If Brazilian ammunition or weapons kill a Russian soldier, Brazil will not have the legitimacy to call Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelensky to dialogue, the president argued.
Amazonia
In the Brazilian delegation are the chancellor, Mauro Vieiraand the ministers fernando haddadof Treasury, Marina Silva Environment and the head of Racial Equality, Aniella Franco. The advisor on international relations and former foreign minister Celso Amorim, is also part of the entourage.
Lula and Biden anticipated the willingness to discuss joint projects against deforestation, understanding that it is a pressing issue for Brazil and for humanity. “The Amazon is an environmental issue but it is also a geopolitical realityIt is a security issue and a matter of fundamental diplomatic importance. Probably, this will be one of the central issues” of the meeting and of the bilateral agenda of the coming years, says Professor De Novion.
Green diplomacy will be one of the axes of the foreign policy of this third term of Lula, who before taking office last November traveled to the UN climate change summit in Egypt together with Marina Silva, the minister who has a good dialogue in the world of NGOs and is a frequent interlocutor of the representative of the North American climate, the former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Bolsonaro
Before meeting Biden, Lula will meet this Friday morning with the senator Bernie Sanders and other legislators from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, who have denounced Bolsonaro’s stay in Florida after the expiration of his diplomatic visa, with which he entered on December 30 when he was still president. The agenda for this meeting was not anticipated but some strategy could be on the agenda to pressure Biden and immigration authorities to deny the far-right leader a tourist visa.
The argument for such a measure would be the one put forward by various Democratic congressmen: that Bolsonaro He used North American territory as a base from where he commanded the uprising on January 8.