(Editorial) In his third term, Brazilian President Lula da Silva has probably not yet fully grasped that the world is not what it was twenty years ago.
The art of diplomacy can sometimes become a spider’s web in which it is easy to get caught when overestimation of one’s position overrides strategy.
This is perhaps the bitterest lesson Brazil took away from the recently concluded G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
However, it was an excellent opportunity for the country to be invited back after 14 years, despite not being a member.
A unique opportunity to reposition itself on the international chessboard, which today is dominated by a Cold War 2.0, or instead by a confrontation between two blocs:
The Western bloc allied with the United States and another bloc that has embraced multipolarism, represented by the BRICS (the group that includes Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa).
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has inflamed this dichotomy, leaving many at risk of being burned.
Therefore, the nervousness of Brazilian diplomacy, which felt pressured by the “surprise presence” of Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky, whose participation was initially planned only by video conference, is surprising.
The surprise is notorious, however, because since the beginning of the conflict, trips or meetings of Zelensky with politicians have always been announced at the last minute for security reasons to avoid attacks.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have been naive in not imagining that Zelensky would suddenly appear in person at the summit of the world’s powerful.
Since that misunderstanding, according to the international press, Lula has reached an impasse where, by the end of the G7 summit, he seems to have lost the credibility as a peace broker he has claimed since taking office.
“A close ally of Putin,” the New York Times described him at the end of the summit. “An enabler of Putin,” the Financial Times said.
Bloomberg had already revealed on Saturday that the presence of the Ukrainian president, who arrived aboard a plane provided by French President Macron, made the Brazilian delegation “uneasy.”
It unsettled Lula, who has repeatedly criticized Zelensky in recent months while embracing Sergei Lavrov, who could freely say in Brasilia that “Brazil and Russia have a common vision in the Ukraine conflict” without anyone contradicting him.
Despite Zelensky’s request for a bilateral meeting with his Brazilian counterpart on Saturday morning, Lula sidestepped the issue, referring to a busy schedule, including with Comorian President Azali Assoumani.
He did not even respond to U.S. President Joe Biden’s request for a face-to-face meeting.
Notably, Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security adviser, had made it clear that Biden wanted to talk to him about Ukraine and denied that pressure was being applied.
“I think pressure is the wrong word. That’s not how President Biden deals with important leaders like Lula,” he had replied to a question from the press.
Also speaking from Brasilia on Saturday evening was Lula’s foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, who had visited Zelensky in Kyiv on May 10 after meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on a secret mission in early April, according to the daily Valor Econômico.
“I am just giving my opinion here. It is within the realm of possibility that Lula will receive him,” Amorim had said Saturday night.
Then on Sunday, pictures of a plenary summit session went around the world, with everyone in the room shaking Zelensky’s hand or waving at him while Lula read a piece of paper impassively.
Even Narendra Modi, the Indian president, who also takes a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict, shook hands with Zelensky, whom he had met earlier for a bilateral meeting.
His statements that “India and Brazil are not neutral, but are interested in maintaining peace in the world” were then confronted with the reality of events.
In the end, however, Lula and Zelensky did not meet. In his farewell press conference, Lula justified himself by saying he had an appointment with the Ukrainian president on Sunday at 3:15 p.m. local time.
“We waited and received the information that Zelensky was late. In the meantime, I received the Vietnamese president. When the Vietnamese president left, Ukraine was not there.”
Then he added: “I was not disappointed, I was upset because I would like to meet him and discuss the matter, so I expected him here in the hotel.”
That’s all.
“Zelensky is of age and knows what he is doing”.
A few hours earlier, a journalist had asked Zelensky at his press conference if he was disappointed that he had not attended the bilateral meeting with the Brazilian president, and he had replied:
“I think the one who was disappointed was Lula”.
Journalist Mario Sabino wrote on the news site Metropoles that
Zelensky exposed Lula. Unlike the Brazilian president, he is a professional in international politics.
He has not faced the humiliation of being assigned to the available time slots as if he were a subordinate being received by a malicious boss, and he has shown that Lula has no interest in a just peace but only wants Ukraine’s surrender disguised as an agreement.
At his press conference, when asked about his peace proposal, Lula compared the war to a strike:
“First, they must sit at a table and negotiate what they must give up. But they both want 100% today, so negotiation is impossible; everyone must give up a little.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about the war. I don’t want to be a mediator at any cost. We have to discuss this in the UN.”
He added, “Today, the UN has no strength, and therefore the Security Council must be changed.”
Lula also said that “in 1948, the UN had the power to create the State of Israel. Today, the UN has no power to maintain peace in Israel and Palestine.”
“It is also unable to ensure that demarcated territories remain intact because Israel occasionally occupies land that belongs to the Palestinians,” forgetting that the UN did not establish the State of Israel but came into being after the Arab-Israeli war.
The 1947 UN resolution called for creating two countries, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs.
The Jews agreed, but the Arabs did not. The State of Israel was created after a war fought by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Lula also stressed that he was willing to go to Ukraine and Russia only if the leaders of both countries were willing to give up something.
There was no shortage of attacks on the United States: “Biden’s speech is to go after Putin until he gives up, but this speech is not helpful.”
Thus ends Brazil’s dream of brokering peace, but one that must first and foremost take into account that there was an invaded country and an invader, and now the world wonders what Lula’s foreign policy will be.
In 2024, India will hand over the G20 presidency to Brazil, but the Brazilian president’s speeches at the G7 summit create uncertainty.
Despite his role as a guest, Lula criticized the group, pushed for Africa’s presence in the G20, attacked neoliberalism, called for a permanent seat for his country on the UN Security Council, and criticized the International Monetary Fund, using the Argentine crisis as an example.
He then met behind closed doors with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and, immediately after shaking hands, could be heard again defending Argentina.
But what does Lula want?
First and foremost, reform of the World Bank and the Monetary Fund, but also of the United Nations.
He also reiterated his opposition to privatization, which he believes only serves the interests of rich countries.
His stated intention is to strengthen Brazil’s alliance with the countries of the global South and China, support the multipolarity sought by Moscow since the dissolution of the USSR, and make Brazil the linchpin of Latin America and the fight against global climate change.
For this reason, he also met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who discussed saving forests in Congo, Brazil, and Indonesia and reaffirmed bilateral neutrality regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly, China, in addition to Lula, has been highly critical of the G7 bloc, which on Saturday expressed its “strong dissatisfaction” and “firm opposition” to the communiqué issued by the leaders of the seven largest industrialized countries reaffirming the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
“Ignoring China’s serious concerns, the G7 insists on manipulating Taiwan-related issues, defaming and attacking China, and grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs,” the sharp written response from the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said.
As for Ukraine, Lula, in the presence of Zelensky, said in his plenary speech that Brazil “condemns the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
But these words fizzled out with Lula’s wall against Zelensky.
What remains of this G7 summit are the photos and some statements on the environment, such as the one with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said, “We have a lot in common,” but also the bitter taste of a missed opportunity and the image of a president who, in his third term, probably still has not understood that the world is not the same as it was twenty years ago.
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