President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) appealed to the “China factor” when asking for more US investments in Brazil during an interview at the Embassy in Washington this Thursday (7), after a meeting lasting more than three hours with American leader Donald Trump, who assessed the meeting as “very good” in a publication in Truth Social.
The big surprise after the meeting was the cancellation of the press conference that the two would hold together.
According to the PT member, the USA lost its position as Brazil’s largest trading partner in the 20th century, after Beijing started looking for goods that only the country would have the capacity to produce on the scale demanded.
“Brazil started to have China as its main trading partner around 2008, when the US lost its hegemony. I told Trump that it is important for the US to take an interest in Brazil’s things again, we often do international tenders and the US does not participate, while the Chinese participate”, he said.
According to the Brazilian president, Washington stopped looking at Latin America as a field of opportunities, focusing its objectives on combating drug trafficking, just as the European Union reduced its attention to the region and Africa after the conquest of Eastern Europe. “Now they realize the importance of Latin America in this troubled world,” he declared.
Lula once again classified his relationship with Trump as “very good”. He even joked about the term “love at first sight”, a possible reference to the “good chemistry” mentioned by the American leader during a quick meeting behind the scenes at the UN in September.
Earlier, President Donald Trump said through a publication in Truth Social that the meeting held at the White House with the “dynamic” President Lula was “very good” and had trade and tariffs among its main topics. The meeting took place in Washington, amid an attempt by the two governments to reduce accumulated tensions in the bilateral relationship.
“I just concluded my meeting with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the very dynamic president of Brazil. We discussed many topics, including trade and specifically tariffs. The meeting went very well,” Trump wrote.
In the same publication, the American president stated that representatives from the two countries should meet in the future to address “certain key points” discussed at the meeting. The Republican leader also said that new meetings will be scheduled in the coming months, “as necessary”.
Trump’s public statement adopted a positive tone after an agenda full of expectations. After the long conversation, the Brazilian president published photos of the meeting with Trump.
Lula arrived at the White House this Thursday around 15 minutes late and spoke with Trump behind closed doors, in a meeting that lasted around 3 hours. A conference between the two leaders and the press was planned, but this conference did not take place. Lula left the White House for the Brazilian Embassy in the USA shortly after the end of the conversation.
Within the so-called “working visit”, the two presidents also extended their conversations during a lunch at the White House. Lula is expected to hold a press conference at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington.
This is the second official meeting between Trump and Lula: in October, they had already met in Malaysia during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit, after having “bumped into each other” at the UN General Assembly in New York the previous month.
This Thursday’s meeting was preceded by renewed exchanges of barbs between the two governments: Lula’s criticism of American actions in Iran and Cuba; the expulsion from the United States of a delegate from the Brazilian Federal Police who had worked in the temporary arrest of former federal deputy Alexandre Ramagem in the North American country – the Lula government reacted by withdrawing the credentials of an attaché from the US Immigration and Customs Agency (ICE) in Brazil; an American investigation into Brazilian business practices; and Washington’s intention to declare the Brazilian criminal groups Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV) as terrorist organizations, something Brasília opposes.
The PT member was accompanied to this Thursday’s meeting by five ministers: Mauro Vieira, of Foreign Relations; Dario Durigan, of the Treasury; Alexandre Silveira, Minister of Mines and Energy; Márcio Rosa, Development, Industry and Foreign Trade; and Wellington César Lima e Silva, Minister of Justice and Public Security.
The director general of the Federal Police, Andrei Rodrigues, is also part of the delegation, but was not at the meeting between the two State leaders.
With no agreements signed, the US and Brazil will maintain contact over the next few weeks to discuss interests
The opening of the press conference at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington was marked by speeches from the five ministers who accompanied the president in the USA. They detailed the content of this Thursday’s talks, which ended without agreements on topics of bilateral interest.
The main focuses of debate at the meeting were bilateral trade, affected by tariffs imposed by the USA, cooperation in combating transnational crimes and the exploration of critical minerals.
Despite the impasse in negotiations, Lula and his team demonstrated optimism after the meeting.
Minister Márcio Rosa said at the press conference that the countries should resume dialogue in the coming weeks to discuss topics that require results. He cites the section 301 investigation, used to investigate a possible unfair trade relationship on the part of Brazil, and the surcharges charged by the White House, which he classified as “not appropriate”.
Lula talks about embargo on Cuba and US “invasion” of Iran
President Lula said this Thursday that Trump would have told him during the meeting they had at the White House that he does not plan to invade Cuba. “If what the translation said is correct, he told me that he doesn’t think about invading Cuba. I heard that from the interpreter,” declared the president during the press conference at the Brazilian embassy in Washington.
The PT member added that he made himself “fully available” if the republican leader “needs help” to address the situation in Havana, whose regime is an ally of the Brazilian government.
Lula once again criticized the war in Iran, another allied country, saying that countries should resolve differences through dialogue and not through war.
“I believe much more in dialogue than in war. I think that the invasion of Iran will cause more damage than he (Trump) is imagining”, he stated.