Rio De Janeiro: With Brazil hosting the Group of 20 summit, it appears unlikely that the leading rich and developing nations will sign onto a meaningful declaration regarding geopolitics.
The gathering on Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro is being held amid two major wars and around two weeks after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed foreign leaders to Rio de Janeiro’s modern art museum Monday morning and delivered an opening address.
Heightened global tensions and uncertainty about an incoming Trump administration have tempered any expectations for a strongly worded statement addressing the conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine. Instead, experts anticipate a final document focused on social issues like the eradication of hunger — one of Brazil’s priorities — even if it aims to include at least a mention of the ongoing wars.
“Brazilian diplomacy has been strongly engaged in this task, but to expect a substantively strong and consensual declaration in a year like 2024 with two serious international conflicts is to set the bar very high,” said Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, an international relations professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
After Lulathwarted far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro ‘s reelection bid in 2022, there was some excitement in the international
community at the prospect of the leftist leader and savvy diplomat — who Barack Obama once called “the most popular politician on Earth” — hosting the G20. Bolsonaro had little personal interest in international summits, let foreign policy be guided by ideology and clashed with several leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Lula took office and often quoted a catchphrase: “Brazil is back.”
Under Lula, Brazil has reverted to its decades-old principle of nonalignment to carve out a policy that best safeguards its interests in an increasingly multipolar world. That involves talking to all parties, which experts say gave Brazil a solid position to host the G20.
But his administration’s foreign policy has at times raised eyebrows.agencies