You come out of labyrinths at the top, it is often said. And of regional political isolation, too, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva implies. "I am living, at 80 years old, my best moment in my time on planet Earth," said the president of Brazil recently, who will seek to win the presidential elections for the fourth time in October to govern from 81 to 85 years old.
The phrase has more content than it seems, because Lula launched the statement in the days when the so-called blue wave, the right-wing governments that were imposed in South America, finished completing itself. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador were already governed by an unapologetic right. And now Keiko Fujimori, in Peru, and Abelardo de la Espriella, in Colombia, join. The only leftist left alongside Lula is Yamandú Orsi, in Uruguay, while Venezuela is a politically separate category, a puppet in the hands of the great leader of the continental right, Donald Trump.
That Lula speaks of a "step on Planet Earth" reflects the idea he has of himself: he may be in the middle of great tensions with Trump, he may have withdrawn his ambassador from Argentina in the face of Javier Milei's repeated insults..., but he looks at everything from above, because his scope of action is neither regional nor continental, his is not geographical: it is planetary.
Brazil does not just want to be the ninth GDP in the world, it longs to sit at the table of the greats to discuss the international political architecture. Lula's (and the country's) desire to reform the United Nations, especially its Security Council, is long-standing, to such an extent that in the 90s Brasilia presented a proposal, accompanied by countries such as Spain and Germany.
These days, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Maria Malmer Stenergard, passed through Brazil and said that the Latin American power can mediate in the war in Ukraine. "I think it is valuable that there are governments in the world with great influence that can dialogue with both parties. And that is where Brazil can play a very important role," Stenergard assured Folha de Sao Paulo.
It is one of Lula's obsessions, being key in the end of the war unleashed in February 2022. The problem is that the Brazilian can call Putin a "friend", something that hardly any other comparable leader dares to do, but he cannot say the same about Volodimir Zelensky. The president of Ukraine has always viewed his Brazilian counterpart with suspicion, and rightly so. Although something is changing between Brasilia and kyiv. Ukraine will soon send an ambassador to Brazil to get out of the current situation in which it only has one chargé d'affaires to talk to the Itamaraty Palace.
To be a mediator, Lula needs kyiv and Moscow, yes, but he cannot do it without the green light from Washington. And how to rebuild your relationship with the United States? Lula relies on his personal charms, those that led him in May, during a three-hour meeting at the White House, to tell Trump that he should smile more. For the current diplomatic pulse, however, occasional and friendly comments will not be enough. Lula has between his eyebrows the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who makes and breaks in Latin America and considers the Brazilian government to be "not a friend" of the United States. He needs to seduce and convince Trump, although that is not a guarantee of much either. The withdrawal of the visa from the Brazilian ambassador in Washington is an inappropriate measure between friendly countries, and it occurred on the same day that Brasilia punished Buenos Aires by withdrawing its ambassador.
Trump and Milei as enemies of Brazil is a blessing ahead of the October 4 elections with Flávio Bolsonaro as the main rival, many in Brazil believe. "Yes, they provide ammunition to Lula's sovereignist electoral narrative. However, the hostile fire requires something more than tribune speeches," says sociologist Demétrio Magnoli. "The Government must adjust its diplomatic responses, calibrating them according to the national interest. The degradation of relations should fall on Washington, not on Buenos Aires. [Lula] will never learn to separate Brazil's interests from its deep-rooted ideological impulses," he adds.
Milei is seen in Brazil as an extravagant being, who devoured Bolsonaro himself during his proclamation as a candidate. Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, a specialist in international relations at the Di Tella University, says that the Argentine president cultivates "anti-diplomacy", while, in an editorial dripping with irony, Folha de Sao Paulo defined the Argentine as "Trump's pathetic ventriloquist", although it also asked that Lula moderate his ideologism and take care of the relationship with his neighbor.
An example could be Fujimori, the new president of Peru, who in a recent meeting with Latin American ambassadors said that "Brazil and President Lula are the only ones who can unite the continent," as revealed by Marcia Carmo on the Brasil247 site. Months earlier, José Antonio Kast, Chilean president and emblem of the hard but kind right, showed pragmatism: "If Brazil is doing well, Chile is doing well."
No matter how many blue waves there are, no matter how many "long live freedom, damn it!" Let Milei and De la Espriella shout while hugging like schoolchildren, Brazil is too much Brazil, Andrés Malamud, Argentine political scientist and professor at the University of Lisbon, told EL MUNDO. "The document from the Argentine Foreign Ministry alleging that Brazil is isolating itself is ingenious but inaccurate. The other governments in the region prefer to have good relations with Brazil, regardless of the ideological affinity of their presidents. And in Brazil, meanwhile, it is more popular to fight with an Argentine president than to receive his support."
Against this background, and with the long shadow of Trump, Lula and his hard-right rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, launched their campaigns last night. Brazilians will go to the polls again very polarized. Lula was the protagonist of a massive event in São Paulo and focused his speech on security and social programs. For his part, Bolsonaro, from Copacabana beach, attacked the president and promised to treat drug traffickers as "terrorists."
