Biden, Lula pledged to defend democracy in Americas

• The two largest countries in the Americas had successfully defended their democracies.
• Biden and Lula met in the Oval Office and expressed camaraderie for their comparable paths.
• Biden and Lula emphasized their shared commitment to conserving the Amazon rainforest.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden and his Brazilian colleague Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced at the White House that the two largest countries in the Americas had successfully defended their democracies and would now collaborate to combat the climate issue.

“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested,” Biden told Lula, and “both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.”

Biden and Lula met in the Oval Office and expressed camaraderie for their comparable paths.

Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020, but a mob of Trump followers invaded Congress two months later, believing his conspiracy idea that he was the true election winner.

In Brazil, Lula defeated right-winger Jair Bolsonaro and was sworn in as president in January, but a mob of Bolsonaro supporters attacked government facilities immediately afterward.

“We have some issues on which we can work together,” Lula told Biden. “First is to never again allow” the anti-democratic mob attacks.

Touting Brazil’s return to the international arena, Lula said his predecessor’s “world started and ended with fake news – in the morning, afternoon, and at night. It seemed that he despised international relations.”

“Sounds familiar,” Biden replied, referring to Trump.

Amazon financing?

Biden and Lula emphasized their shared commitment to conserving the Amazon rainforest and combating global change, measures that both Bolsonaro and Trump have ignored.

Biden said their “shared values… put us on the same page, particularly, especially, when it comes to the climate crisis.”

However, it is unclear whether the Biden administration will agree to contribute to the Amazon Fund, a global initiative to fund anti-deforestation initiatives in Brazil.

“I think they will,” Lula told reporters. “I not only think they will, but I think that it’s necessary they participate.”

However, he then said that in the talks “I didn’t specifically discuss an Amazon Fund. I discussed the responsibility of rich countries to assume responsibility to fund countries with rainforests and not only in Brazil.”

In the Oval Office, Lula informed Biden that during his previous presidency, from 2003 to 2010, he committed Brazil to drastic reductions in deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest, which is sometimes referred to as the “lungs of the earth” due to its tremendous greenhouse gas absorption.

However, “in the last few years, the rainforest in the Amazon was invaded by political irrationality, human irrationality, because we had a president who sent people to deforest, sent gold diggers into the Indigenous areas,” he said, referring to Bolsonaro.

Biden has made US leadership in combating climate change one of his top priorities, beginning with re-entry into the Paris climate agreement after Trump quit the landmark agreement aimed at slowing global warming.

Ukraine divide

One point of contention between Biden and Lula is Ukraine, which was not mentioned during their inaugural remarks before media were escorted out of the Oval Office.

Biden has led an unparalleled Western effort to rally behind Ukraine, giving money, ammunition, military training, and diplomatic backing as the country battle Russia’s war machine.

However, several major democratic countries, most notably India, South Africa, and Brazil, have mostly stood on the sidelines, refusing to provide military assistance to Ukraine and sending contradictory signals politically.

After his meeting was over, Lula told reporters that he wanted to assemble an international “group of countries that aren’t directly or indirectly involved in the war of Russia against Ukraine so that we can have a possibility to build peace.”

“That is, I’m convinced that we need to find a way out to end this war. I found Biden shared the same concern,” he said. “The first thing is to stop the war.”

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