US President Joe Biden intends to highlight a “shared commitment” of the United States and Brazil for democracy, and for the Amazon forest, by receiving his counterpart Lula on Friday.
The two leaders want to “deepen [leur] shared commitment to promote, strengthen and deepen democracy,” a senior White House official said in an exchange with reporters.
The Brazilian president rejoiced on Twitter at this “first meeting” and indicated that he “hoped for a very productive relationship, for the benefit of each of our countries. »
The senior US official pointed out that Joe Biden had “picked up the phone on his own initiative, not on the recommendation of his advisers, to call” the Brazilian head of state when, on January 8, the institutions in Brasilia were ransacked by supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
The latter is also on American territory, in Florida, and the White House has not yet received any specific “request” from the Brazilian authorities about him, according to the same source.
Bilateral relations have been complicated while Jair Bolsonaro was in power, and Washington, as much as Brasilia, intends to give it another direction.
Joe Biden and Lula will want to move forward on a subject that the former president, a notorious climate skeptic, blocked: the defense of the environment, in particular the Amazon forest.
“Climate change is the main topic of the discussions they have already had”, and both recognize the need to “make bold decisions”, according to the head of the American executive.
Amazon
Deforestation in the Amazon has increased by 60% in each of Bolsonaro’s years in office (2019-2022).
It continued, but slowed down significantly from Lula’s first month in office.
In January, 167 km2 of the largest rainforest on the planet were razed, more than 22,000 football pitches.
But this is much less than the 430 km2 deforested in January 2022, when Jair Bolsonaro was still in power.
Lula has pledged zero deforestation by 2030 in the world’s largest rainforest, critical to controlling the planet’s climate.
More concretely, the Oval Office will discuss the “Amazon Fund”, a multilateral financial mechanism created in 2008 and managed by Brazil to support the fight against deforestation.
Lula has relaunched this fund that his predecessor had frozen, and to which Norway and to a lesser extent Germany have contributed so far. Brazil is now looking for other donors.
“It’s an important subject,” said the previously quoted source, without commenting on a possible contribution from the United States, which would be an important announcement.
Ukraine
The White House remained even more evasive on another subject: Ukraine.
The United States is the big driver of the Western response to Russia, while Brazil has condemned the Russian invasion at the UN but has not adopted economic sanctions against Moscow or sent munitions to kyiv.
Washington “respects” the efforts of the Brazilian president to “encourage dialogue and peace”, a year or so after the start of the war, said the senior American official.
“I wouldn’t assume that they will disagree, I think they will confront their points of view,” he summed up.
In general, Brazil is keen to maintain a balanced relationship with other emerging powers, including China, the United States’ great rival.