After a case of pneumonia forced Brazilian President Lula to cancel his scheduled-late March summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, both governments have quickly established a new date for their much-awaited meeting. Lula will be in China from April 11-15, and he will meet with Xi on April 14. The central issues on the agenda will be: 1) efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war (both Presidents have made proposals in that regard); 2) bilateral trade and investment agreements, including a breakthrough accord already announced to carry out these transactions in local currencies, the yuan and the real, rather than the dangerous dollar, using an offshore yuan clearinghouse which now includes some 25 countries which use the yuan; and 3) the future activities of the BRICS, of which Brazil and China are members, including its expected expansion.
Lula will also travel to Shanghai on April 13 for the formal investiture of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as the new president of the New Development Bank (she has been acting as president for a week or so, but held off on the formal ceremony until Lula could be there). Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, announced that Lula would unfortunately miss a scheduled meeting with the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen in Brasilia on April 12, but that he would be back in time to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on April 17.
