Brazil’s Lula is right on global politics and wrong on Ukraine

When Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in in January, many policymakers in the West breathed a sigh of relief. Four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s reactionary policies had undermined Western involvement in Brazil and left Western liberal democracies concerned about the resurgence of far-right politics in South America.

The staunch support Lula received from Western capitals, especially from Washington, when Bolsonaro’s followers attacked government buildings in the Brazilian capital shortly after the inauguration, was intended to reinforce this “reset” in relations.

But when the United States and its European allies urged the Brazilian president to take a stand on the raging war in Ukraine, they didn’t get the response they had hoped for.

Apart from the fact that Brazil voted in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression, Brazil has not taken a clear side in the conflict under the new government.

Lula refused to enter the anti-Russian camp by joining the sanctions regime or arming Ukraine and continued to follow the neutrality line of his right-wing predecessor.

Of course, it is naive to expect Brazil to fully join the West on the war in Ukraine. From a Global South perspective, Lula’s point of view makes sense. He not only defends vital national interests related to Brazilian agribusiness, but is also ideologically consistent with Brazil’s neutral position in world politics.

Still, domestic concerns and diplomatic continuity should not prevent the Brazilian government from demonstrating solidarity with Ukraine, the victim of aggression by a former colonial power.

Domestic considerations

During his 2022 election campaign, Lula built on his previous success and raised hope among Brazil’s poor that his new government will repeat the socio-economic policies of the past.

During his first two terms in office (2003-2010), the global rise in commodity prices enabled his government to increase government spending. The extra revenue was diverted into massive income transfers, such as Bolsa Familia, the social program that became his trademark, which lifted some 36 million people out of extreme poverty.

But today the situation in Brazil is very different, given the internal political polarizations and the difficult economic situation characterized by high inflation, sluggish growth and a sluggish private sector.

Therefore, when formulating his foreign policy, Lula has to take into account the economic interests of industries, which contribute large parts of the state’s revenue. When examining relations with Russia, one of the most important sectors to consider is agribusiness, which accounts for about 25 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 48 percent of the country’s total exports.

The productivity of Brazilian agriculture depends on the massive use of fertilizers, especially NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds). Brazil is the world’s largest importer of NPK and Russia is the largest seller, accounting for 22 percent of Brazil’s demand.

Participating in the Western sanctions regime against Moscow would certainly disrupt the steady supply of Russian fertilizers and affect agricultural exports. This, in turn, would not only anger big agribusiness, which has a significant lobby in Brazil’s parliament, but would also erode the government’s revenue stream from agricultural exports.

Lula’s calculations are simple: to fund social policies and win back the electorate that swung to the far right, he needs economic stability and sources of income; the trade relationship with Russia plays an important role in this.

Non-alignment in the 21st century

Brazil under Lula is not alone in pursuing its own interests when considering its stance on the war in Ukraine. Governments in the South don’t want to get involved because they think they have a lot to lose if they do.

Last year, the war and subsequent sanctions took their toll on poorer countries as the prices of grains and fuel skyrocketed. Developing countries cannot afford to exacerbate the crisis by taking sides in a war that concerns little of them and that may threaten their grain supplies.

There is a general feeling in the South that Europe and the US are ignoring global economic stability and the well-being of poorer countries in their rush to arm and aid Ukraine.

Many also view Western support for Kiev as a continuation of the long track record of Western interventions around the world. In this sense, the Brazilian government and others in the Global South do not see the West as the moral authority to demand support for their military efforts in Ukraine. The locus classicus of this line of reasoning is the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Washington launched despite not having UN Security Council clearance.

In the context of rising tensions between the West and China and Russia, Lula has sought to establish a geopolitical foundation analogous to the non-aligned movement during the Cold War. During visits abroad, he has emphasized Brazil’s neutrality and has called for South-South solidarity, even calling for the de-dollarization of international trade.

He has called for peace and proposed a new initiative – a “peace club” in an effort to kick start negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

Moscow has given a nod to the initiative, but Kiev has flatly rejected it, while the US accused the Brazilian leader of “pursuing Russian and Chinese propaganda”.

Lula’s later remarks that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are both responsible for the war and that Ukraine will have to give up its claim to the Crimean peninsula have not helped. Damage control efforts by the presidency, which clearly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rejected Russia’s invitation to participate in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, have not worked.

Lula’s attempt to launch a new non-aligned movement has failed, and in doing so, he appears to have lost some of the international stature he had built up during his previous terms.

The Pitfall of Third Worldism

There is a contradiction in Lula’s advocacy of a 21st century Third Worldism towards the war in Ukraine. While he is right in criticizing Western interventionism, his critique falls short when considering Ukrainian history and current position.

The country, one of the poorest in Europe, has a brutal colonial past similar to that of Brazil and the rest of Latin America. It is by no means a nation of the Global North, enriched by the domination of other peoples.

At the same time, Ukraine cannot be reduced to a victim of forced Westernization or a puppet of NATO. This would ignore the Ukrainian struggle for national liberation and independence and legitimize Russian aggression and colonialist pretensions.

In this sense, if Brazil supported Ukraine, it would be an expression of South-South solidarity – one that sees through the propaganda of Western, as well as Eastern, powers.

By reaching out to Kiev, Lula can reject not only the simplistic Western narrative of “Western liberal democracy versus Eastern authoritarianism” but also the equally hypocritical “West versus the rest” discourse, which turns a blind eye to aggression by regional powers. , autocratic brutality and oppression of minorities in the South.

The Brazilian government also cannot ignore the growing evidence of shocking war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, which disproves all claims of symmetry within this conflict. Lula cannot present herself as a messenger of peace, leading a country historically committed to human rights and social justice while ignoring major violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

The Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s apologetic narrative challenge the legitimacy of the international justice system that has supported the Brazilian state, a founding member of the UN, since 1945. Putin’s multi-imperialist vision of a world in which nuclear powers divide it into spheres of influence is in direct contradiction to the multilateralism and egalitarianism Brazil has championed for the past 75 years.

Lula seems stuck in old Cold War dilemmas in a world that is no longer bipolar. The alternative to the unilateralism of US President George W. Bush that marked the 2003 invasion of Iraq cannot be the multi-imperialism of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

If the Brazilian president really wants to promote multilateralism and uphold international law, he must unequivocally express his solidarity with Ukraine and condemn Russian aggression. From this position, he can then lead multinational mediation efforts, building a coalition of willing partners with China and India.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera