Brazil hosts G-20 with wars and Trump’s return in background, and focus on fighting hunger
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil sought concerted action on alleviating hunger Monday as it hosted a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies amid global uncertainty over two major wars and incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed foreign leaders to Rio de Janeiro’s modern art museum Monday morning and delivered an opening address that focused on fighting food insecurity.
“It is for those of us here, around this table, to face the undelayable task of ending this stain that shames humanity,” Lula told his colleagues. “That will be our biggest legacy.”
Heightened global tensions and uncertainty about an incoming Trump administration have tempered any expectations for a strongly worded statement addressing the conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine. Instead, experts anticipate a final document focused on social issues like the eradication of hunger — one of Brazil’s priorities — even if it aims to include at least a mention of the ongoing wars.
“Brazilian diplomacy has been strongly engaged in this task, but to expect a substantively strong and consensual declaration in a year like 2024 with two serious international conflicts is to set the bar very high,” said Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, an international relations professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
President Biden is beginning a six-day visit to Peru and Brazil for the final major international summits of his presidency.
After Lula thwarted far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro ‘s reelection bid in 2022, there was some excitement in the international community at the prospect of the leftist leader and savvy diplomat — whom Barack Obama once called “the most popular politician on Earth” — hosting the G-20. Bolsonaro had little personal interest in international summits, let foreign policy be guided by ideology and clashed with several leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. When Lula took office he often quoted a catchphrase: “Brazil is back.”
Under Lula, Brazil has reverted to its decades-old principle of nonalignment to carve out a policy that best safeguards its interests in an increasingly multipolar world. That involves talking to all parties, which experts say gave Brazil a solid position to host the G-20.
But his administration’s foreign policy has at times raised eyebrows. A Brazil-China peace plan for Russia and Ukraine doesn’t call for Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine and has been slammed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And Lula sparked a diplomatic incident with Israel after comparing its actions in Gaza to the Holocaust.
Trump’s win in the U.S. presidential election earlier this month and the imminent return of an “America First” doctrine may also hamper the diplomatic spirit needed for broad agreement on divisive issues.
“If we have one certainty, it is regarding Donald Trump’s skepticism towards multilateralism,” Carneiro said.
Before the G-20 summit, New Delhi razed shantytowns with little notice. Activists and the evicted say the city pushed thousands more into homelessness.
Two officials from Brazil and one from another G-20 nation say Argentine negotiators are standing in the way of a joint declaration. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Two of them said that Argentina’s negotiators have raised several objections to the draft. They most vehemently oppose a clause calling for a global tax on the super-rich — which they had previously accepted, in July — and another promoting gender equality.
Ambassador Mauricio Lyrio, Brazil’s key negotiator at the G-20, told journalists on Nov. 8 that the leaders’ final declaration should address the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, but that diplomats were still discussing acceptable language. He added that Lula’s launch of a global alliance against hunger and poverty on Monday is just as important as the final statement.
“The leaders’ declaration will be the crowning achievement. But, at the same time, as instructed by the president himself, we have a G-20 focused on concrete actions, such as the launch of a Global Alliance Against Hunger, with a package of very concrete social programs and innovative mechanisms to meet the resources needed for implementing them.”
As of Monday morning, 81 nations had signed on to the plan, Brazil’s government said.
Lula, a former trade unionist who hails from a humble background, made the fight against hunger a priority during his first two terms as president (2003-2010) both at home and abroad. The number of undernourished Brazilians fell by more than 80% in 10 years, according to a 2014 U.N. report.
China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and others are in the Russian city of Kazan for the developing economies’ summit meant to counterbalance Western clout.
Lula’s hunger alliance is the only one of Brazil’s primary aims for a G-20 declaration that will be obtained, according to Thomas Traumann, a former government minister and a political consultant based in Rio.
“Brazil wanted a global deal to fight poverty, a project to finance green transition and some consensus over a global tax for the super-rich. Only the first one has survived,” Traumann said.
President Biden attended the summit after a stop in Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. He also traveled over the weekend to Manaus, a city in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. It was the first time a sitting American president set foot in the Amazon.
The White House announced Sunday a $50-million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, after contributing a prior $50 million. Biden’s administration announced plans last year to give $500 million.
White House officials have insisted that Biden’s visits to APEC and the G-20 would be substantive, with talks on climate issues, global infrastructure, counternarcotic efforts and one-on-one meetings with global leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. Those officials said Biden also would use the summits to press allies to keep up support for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia’s invasion and not lose sight of finding an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza.
The General Assembly approved the summit’s main outcome document — a 42-page “Pact of the Future” — on Sunday morning with a bang of the gavel.
Looming large on Monday was Biden’s decision the prior day authorizing Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, by easing limitations on longer range weapons as Russia deploys thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war.
On Monday, Biden was expected to announce a “historic” pledge to replenish the World Bank’s International Development Assn. fund aimed at the world’s poorest countries, White House deputy principal national security advisor Jonathan Finer said.
Any commitments Biden makes may be overturned by the next White House administration.
Trump’s election may also cause other countries to look toward China as a more reliable partner. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Xi on Monday, the first meeting between British and Chinese leaders since 2018. Starmer’s office says the U.K. leader is seeking to repair relations with Beijing after years of acrimony over human rights, Hong Kong and what U.K. officials say are Beijing’s attempts to exert influence on British politics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the summit’s most notable absentee. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant that obliges member states to arrest him. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the meeting.
In a plaza a few blocks away, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to denounce the killings in Gaza, some beating drums and chanting “Long live the fight of the Palestinian people!” Among them were two rabbis who traveled from New York. Israel isn’t a G-20 member.
Hughes, Savarese and Biller write for the Associated Press. Aamer Madhani in Rio de Janeiro, Gabriela Sá Pessoa in Sao Paulo and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
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