\n<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country\u2019s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a \u201cfriendly\u201d video call, swapping phone numbers after months of friction.<\/p>\n
Ties between the US and Brazil have nosedived as a result of Trump\u2019s campaign to pressure Brazilian authorities into abandoning the coup trial of his far-right ally, Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n
In August, the US introduced 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports, partly as a result of what Trump called the \u201cwitch-hunt\u201d against Brazil\u2019s former president, who was accused of trying to seize power after losing the 2022 election to Lula.<\/p>\n
US efforts to derail Bolsonaro\u2019s prosecution \u2013 which also included sanctioning Brazilian officials and revoking visas \u2013 failed. On 11 September, Bolsonaro was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison by the supreme court.<\/p>\n
A fortnight later, Trump appeared to extend an olive branch to Lula at the UN general assembly in New York. \u201cHe seemed like a very nice man, actually,\u201d Trump said of his leftwing counterpart after a brief backstage encounter during which the US president claimed there had been \u201cexcellent chemistry\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Trump and Lula held their first extended conversation since the former returned to the White House in January. \u201cIt was positive,\u201d Brazil\u2019s finance minister, Fernando Haddad, who also took part in the half-hour call, told reporters after.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Brazil\u2019s presidency said Trump and Lula had \u201crecalled the good chemistry felt in New York\u201d and \u201cexchanged phone numbers to establish a direct channel of communication\u201d.<\/p>\n
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump celebrated \u201ca very good\u201d exchange, adding: \u201cI enjoyed the call \u2014 Our Countries will do very well together!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lula called the conversation \u201can opportunity to restore the friendly 201-year relationship between the west\u2019s two biggest democracies\u201d and asked for US tariffs and sanctions against Brazilian officials to be scrapped.<\/p>\n
Lula also said he hoped to meet Trump in person, possibly at a summit in Malaysia later this month, or by travelling to the US. He reiterated his invitation for the US president to attend November\u2019s Cop30 climate summit in the Amazon of Bel\u00e9m.<\/p>\n
Trump said: \u201cWe discussed many things, but it was mostly focused on the Economy, and Trade, between our two Countries. We will be having further discussions, and will get together in the not too distant future, both in Brazil and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matias Spektor, an international relations professor at Brazil\u2019s Get\u00falio Vargas Foundation, said it was too early to declare the rift between Bras\u00edlia and Washington over: \u201cAll we know is that Trump is willing to talk and that Lula is willing to talk as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was unclear whether Trump raised Bolsonaro\u2019s plight during the call \u2013 but even if he did, Spektor said there was nothing Lula could offer the US president with regards to that. \u201cLula simply cannot deliver any changes in the way the supreme court treats Bolsonaro \u2026 even if he wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Spektor believed one possible area where Brazil could help Trump was Haiti. Last week the UN security council approved US-backed plans for a thousands-strong \u201cGang Suppression Force\u201d to tackle the crisis in the Caribbean country.<\/p>\n
In 2004, during Lula\u2019s first presidential term, Brazil began sending thousands of troops to Haiti to lead the UN stabilisation mission there, which lasted until 2017. Just over two decades later, Spektor wondered whether Brazilian boots might again be seen on the ground in Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n
\u201cI may well be very wrong \u2026 It could be the case that nobody in the [Lula] administration wants to burn their fingers with this,\u201d Spektor said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[But] Haiti is one instance in which the demand coming from the White House could be met by Brazil \u2013 and it\u2019s something Brazil has done in the past and \u2026 that Lula could present as Brazil\u2019s contribution to world order, stability and peace at a time at which things are so messy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if this is an area where Lula can do something that Trump will appreciate, this is where you have a bridge between Trump and Lula \u2026 The stars could align.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country\u2019s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a \u201cfriendly\u201d video call, swapping phone numbers after months of friction. Ties between the US and Brazil have nosedived as a result<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4092,3160,2590,634,6743,1059,6651,72,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-26274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-asks","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-brazils","11":"tag-call","12":"tag-friendly","13":"tag-president","14":"tag-scrap","15":"tag-tariffs","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}