Interviewed by London’s Financial Times this week on Brazil’s view of international relations in the post-Trump-tariff world, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Special Foreign Policy Advisor Celso Amorim emphasized that the BRICS are stepping in to provide global stability.
Amorim argues that “China and the developing sector are today the main defenders of the multilateral system,” calling it “fundamental” to have multilaterally-accepted rules for global trade in order to avoid a repeat of the 1930s, the Financial Times reported April 23.
“As the United States steps back from multilateralism, from the economic and social order which they themselves created after the Second World War, the space for the BRICS increases,” Amorim said.
He clarified for the London-based daily that Brazil “does not have exclusive alliances,” but, instead, seeks good relations with all major powers, without copying anyone’s model. For example, China and Brazil have close relations, and Amorim spoke of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as a “very good friend.” Yet, while, to date, there has been little (if any) high-level communication between the Trump and Lula governments, Financial Times wrote that Amorim thinks a world order without Washington is impossible. “Little by little, we will have to attract the United States again,” he said, but meanwhile, Brazil will try to avoid conflict with the U.S.—and at the same time is also “not going to stop giving our opinion.”
Amorim suggested that Europeans could learn something about strategy from Brazil. He noted that he had been present at the Munich Security Conference in February, where U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance shocked everyone by criticizing Europe on migration and freedom of speech. For Europeans, Amorim said, “the floor disappeared from under their feet. But that wasn’t the case for Brazil. Brazil has various floors, including some constructed from BRICS.”
