In his third term in office, President Lula da Silva is trying to regain the global prominence of Brazilian foreign policy that characterised his previous terms (2003-2010) and those of President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). However, a lot has changed on the domestic and international scenes since 2016, posing complex challenges for Brazil’s capacity to resume its leading geopolitical role. In domestic politics, Lula depends on a broad front of parties, some centre-right, with interests strongly linked to Western powers.
The influence of the foreign policy of the governing Workers’ Party, which historically builds linkages with the Global South, has diminished. On the other hand, the escalation of tensions between the Western powers and some BRICS members — specifically Russia and Iran, which are currently targets of NATO attacks, as well as the ‘systemic threat’ of China — seem to have influenced Brazil to adopt a less active stance towards the group despite being a founding member and one of the main driving forces in its early years.
Brazilian foreign policy in 2024 was marked by a strong commitment to the G20, the signing of the EU-Mercosur agreement (which has unfavourable aspects for the Brazilian economy) and timid participation in BRICS during the Russian presidency. This stance is evident in Itaramaty’s (Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs ) foreign policy concept of ‘active non-alignment’, which seeks to balance itself amid the growing polarisation between the US and China, and their respective allies. Itamaraty seems to be betting on strengthening an alliance with Europe, whose main powers (Germany and France) are in decline and facing a series of economic and political crises.
Although this new principle is based on a reasonable assumption — that Brazil should not automatically align itself with any of the poles in dispute — it has proved ineffective in practice, as it has yielded few benefits for the country at a time when the demand for reindustrialisation and sustainable development requires boldness from Brazilian foreign policy in the search for beneficial economic and political alliances. Furthermore, as Latin America’s largest country, Brazil has a fundamental geopolitical role to play in the construction of a new multipolar order.
Brazil’s presidency of the G20: the right bet in the wrong place
Brasilia has made a monumental effort to organise the G20 in 2024. Brazil proposed some innovations to the G20 format. For example, the organisation of the Social G20, which opened up an unprecedented space for the participation of dozens of civil society organisations, including numerous grassroots movements with a broad social base. Although the government’s conduct was criticised — such as the insufficient attention paid to the debates held by social organisations and the excessive influence of foundations from the Global North (the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation and the European Commission, for example) — it was a commendable effort that should be repeated by both the South African presidency of the G20 and the Brazilian presidency of the BRICS in 2025.
Brazil’s greatest achievement at the G20 was undoubtedly the creation of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. President Lula da Silva was able to overcome the polarisation – on the Ukraine issue – that prevailed in the G20 at the last two summits (Indonesia and India) and propose a positive agenda, a global campaign.
It can therefore be said that Brazil won a diplomatic victory in the organisation of the G20. When it launched the Global Alliance, Brazil was immediately joined by 82 countries, the African Union, the European Union, 24 international organisations, nine international financial institutions and 31 philanthropic and non-governmental organisations. The Inter-American Development Bank announced $25 billion in funding, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) pledged $22 billion, the World Bank announced low-interest loans and Brazil committed to financing half of the maintenance mechanisms by 2030.
However, Brazil’s diplomatic achievement does not exempt us from asking a fundamental question: what are the real chances of this Global Alliance taking off and becoming an effective campaign against hunger and poverty in the world? Is it possible for the G20 to become a platform for co-operation between countries of the Global North and South? Unfortunately, recent history provides us with less than optimistic evidence of its chances of success, and the main reason for this has a name: the G7. In recent years, the core of the so-called developed countries has been notorious for its inability to fulfil its promises to contribute to resolving the economic and social demands of the Global South.
The G7’s broken promises: real effort or marketing ploy?
At the 2021 G7 summit in the UK, the leaders of the wealthy countries made a bombshell announcement: the launch of an unprecedented initiative, Build Back Better World (B3W), which promised investments of 40 trillion dollars for developing countries by 2035. B3W made its objective clear: to compete with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was allegedly neither transparent nor sustainable. The announcement made headlines around the world, but a few months later it had already been forgotten.
The following year, at the G7 Summit in Germany, the leaders reworked the project, making it more modest, and renamed it the Global Partnership for Investment and Infrastructure. They promised 600 billion dollars by 2027. Again, nothing has happened aside from the announcement.
Furthermore, at COP 27 in Egypt in 2022, President Lula called out the rich countries, which had promised at COP 15 (2009) to donate 100 billion dollars a year from 2020 to combat climate change. According to him, the promise hadn’t been fulfilled until then.
On the other hand, according to an April 2024 article in the Council of Foreign Relations, under US leadership, more than 300 billion dollars had already been invested in the war. NATO has spent, in just over two years, almost 1/3 of what China has invested in 10 years in the BRI. This demonstrates the priority of the G7 (through its armed arm, NATO): to try to suffocate any country that dares to defy the dictates of Washington and Brussels, such as Russia. Moscow is notorious for proposing and encouraging initiatives that point to alternatives to Western hegemony.
Given these facts, plus the growing polarisation of the G20 and Donald Trump’s return to the White House, who is absolutely averse to multilateral institutions, it is hard to believe that the G20 will become a space for cooperation capable of responding to the main economic challenges facing developing countries. It must continue to be a space for dialogue between the Collective West and the Global Majority, which is certainly important in a context of increasing risks of world war. But for the Global Majority, the G20 can only be tactical, not strategic.
The Brazilian presidency of the BRICS: is it possible to regain a leading role?
Brazil took over the presidency with good news, the accession of Indonesia as the tenth full member of the BRICS (Saudi Arabia continues to maintain an ambiguous position on its accession) and announced its priorities: facilitate trade and investments among BRICS countries through new payment systems, AI governance, the improvement of financing for the fight against climate change, South-South cooperation in public health, and the institutional strengthening of the group. These are strategic issues, but there are doubts as to whether there is enough time for the necessary negotiations with the other members of the group. The Brazilian government has scheduled the Rio Summit for the first half of July, as it is also hosting COP 30 in November and needs to release its ministerial staff involved in organising the event.
Something seems to have changed between 2023 and 2024 in Brazil’s relationship with the BRICS. In April 2023, at Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration ceremony as president of the NDB, Lula made an emphatic speech, questioning why countries around the world are obliged to use the dollar in their commercial transactions, and calling on the BRICS to build alternatives. Months later, Celso Amorim, former foreign minister and current special advisor to the Brazilian presidency for international affairs, said in an interview on the eve of the Johannesburg Summit: ‘The world can no longer be dictated by the G7.’ During the negotiations between the BRICS leaders in Johannesburg, as one diplomat involved told me, Lula was the one who most insisted that the issue of alternatives to dollar hegemony be included in the final resolution. The Brazilian president himself read out the announcement of the creation of a working group that would include finance ministries and central banks and would report back to the leaders the following year. Brazil did indeed seem to be regaining its leadership within the group.
During 2024, Brazil paid little attention to the activities promoted by the Russian presidency. In Brazil, there is a lot of talk about supposed pressure from the Collective West behind the scenes for the country to back down from its position in the BRICS. The coverage in the mainstream media, which is totally aligned with Washington’s positions, is very unfavourable to the group and exerts pressure against Brazilian participation.
However, in public speeches, Itamaraty has insisted on the need for concrete action at the multilateral forums in which it participates. This is a welcome intention and the hope is that Brazil will use its presidency to advance some concrete cooperation initiative. The entire Global Majority is eagerly awaiting the resumption of Brazil’s leading role in the BRICS.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club’s, unless explicitly stated otherwise.