Link to Article: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-lula-meet-biden-friday-white-house-2023-02-09/
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist president, met with US president Joe Biden in the white house during his visit to Washington DC on Thursday. The visit would focus on support for Brazilian democracy and cooperation between both countries in environmental commitments. The US is currently discussing and considering joining a multilateral fund targeted at the combating the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The relations between Brazil and the United States, as the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere has been lukewarm until now under Lula’s more conservative and politically right meaning predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who was a supporter and ally of former US president Donald Trump. Brazil has stated their main points for the meeting are democracy, human rights and the environment. Brazil wishes to add US to the countries currently contributing to the $1.3 billion Amazon fund which also includes Germany and Norway. Brazil is also interested in preferential access to the U.S defense market and Pentagon equipment sales.
This is very interesting move by Brazil but also expected. with presidents who share similar political ideologies in office, and both being the two largest democracies in the western hemisphere, it makes sense that with the world’s current shift from Unipolar to Multipolar, Globalisation ect, that Brazil and the US would work towards improving relations. It is likely that relation between both countries will continue to improve and cooperation and interconnectedness will increase.
This relates to our in class discussion of US grand-strategy and geopolitics. The United States could use a future alliance with Brazil to protect and ensure the security and prosperity of Latin America and prevent China from interference in the entirety of the Western Hemisphere. This would be a major impact to China’s ability to project power and limit its available options. It would also allow for safe and increased focus towards improving Latin American trade and economics through cooperation between both nations.