The U.S. showed how quickly it can turn on “friends” when disagreements in policies arise and Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was the latest victim of Washington scorn. 

Lula has recently criticized the U.S. and West for contributing to the chaos in Ukraine by propping Kyiv up with weapons and funding.

“The European Union needs to start talking about peace so that we can convince [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky that peace is in the interest of everyone and that war is only interesting, for now, to the two of them,” Lula said, according to the Libertarian Institute. 

John Kirby, the White House’s National Security Council’s spokesman, said last week that Brazil is wrong to approach the Ukraine War as though Washington is not interested in peace.

“In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts,” he said. 

Lula said countries like Brazil and China should work to bring a peaceful resolution in Ukraine, and he has spoken out against Russia’s “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

Ukraine invited Lula to visit the war-torn country to “to understand the real causes of Russian aggression and its consequences for global security.”

Brazil has not imposed sanctions on Russia and has not provided Ukraine with any weapons. 

Oleg Nikolenko, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, accused the Brazilian government of giving equal weight to “the victim and the aggressor,” The Guardian reported.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, visited Brasilia on Monday to meet with his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira. He thanked his “Brazilian friends for their excellent understanding of this situation’s genesis.” 

TRENDPOST: We reported last week that Lula represents the general mistrust that the Global South has towards the U.S. (See “BRICS ON THE RISE: BRAZIL’S LULA WARMS UP TO CHINA, COOLS DOWN ON AMERICA” 18 Apr 2023, “BRAZIL’S LULA BLASTS U.S. OVER WEAPON TRANSFERS TO UKRAINE” 7 Jun 2022, “BRAZIL’S LULA SAYS UKRAINE’S COMEDIAN SHARES BLAME FOR WAR” 10 May 2022, and “IRANIAN WARSHIP’S VISIT TO BRAZIL DRAWS ISRAEL’S IRE” 24 Jan 2023.)

In June, Lula questioned the U.S.’s judgment after Washington poured $40 billion in weapons into Ukraine while dealing with record-high inflation. He said sanctions against Russia have badly damaged economies that still have not recovered from COVID-19 lockdowns.

The U.S. response was unusual, but betrayed a degree of anger after Lula also vowed to move closer to China. Lula met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this month and solidified plans to work more closely in the future and “expand trade and balance in world geopolitics.”

TREND FORECAST: Militarily and economically, much of the world has had enough of America’s hegemony. Therefore, there will be continued expansion of nations that will dump the dollar and prohibit U.S. military/intelligence presence in their nations.