Kylian Mbappé finally responds to Argentine provocations with a nice imitation

AFP extension

Lula, the international return: first stop, the neighbors

World first, neighborhood first: President Lula begins his return to the international scene on Monday with a visit to his neighbor and ally Argentina, then a Latin American regional summit, even if the Brazilian leader is experiencing other internal emergencies. at the start of his presidency, and just two weeks after the onslaught that saw Bolsonarists threaten places of power in Brasilia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday evening for an official visit, followed by a summit on Tuesday of the Community of and the Caribbean (CELAC – 33 member countries), in the presence of around fifteen heads of state and government. Lula will then conclude his first international outing in Uruguay on Wednesday, before receiving German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Brasilia on January 30, then going to Washington on February 10, to meet his American counterpart Joe Biden. For Argentina, the visit is critical. Brazil is its largest trading partner, Argentina is Brazil’s third largest. But the ideological distance between the (centre-left) government of Alberto Fernandez and the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, as well as “the latter’s absence from international forums, has made it very difficult to agree on a whole series of topics”, the spokeswoman for the Argentine presidency Gabriela Cerruti recalled on Friday. Lula’s visit should in fact seal large-scale bilateral agreements in various fields: energy, science, health, agriculture, finance. A step towards “an integration as we have dreamed of for years” between the 1st and 3rd economies of Latin America, two countries “very important for the world in the face of the challenges that will come (which are) food production and energy”, underlines the presidency. For Latin America, the symbolism is very strong. The Buenos Aires summit seals Brazil’s return to CELAC, from which the Bolsonaro government withdrew it in January 2020, believing that the organization, created in 2010, gave “the leadership role to undemocratic regimes”, such as Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua”. The Bolsonaro government saw Latin America as a problem and not as a foreign policy solution, a very negative view,” Felicio de Sa Guimaraes, academic director of the Brazilian Center for International Relations, sums up for AFP. Celac is certainly not a regional integration body, but a regional forum for dialogue and cooperation.However, it is the only one that brings together the countries of the region – apart from the United States and Canada -, and the de facto regional interlocutor of the European Union or China .- Everywhere, “rebuild “bridges” -Reintegrate the CELAC” a first step”. economic means” estimates the Brazilian analyst. And reintegration does not necessarily mean priority. “The initial indications of the president (Lula) were clear: to rebuild + bridges + not only with Latin America and Africa, but also with the United States, China and Europe, with the same degree of importance and priority,” underlined the head of Brazilian diplomacy Mauro Vieira on Saturday. Furthermore, more than a decade after Lula was the leader of the influential group of emerging economies BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), or pr Omotor, precisely, of CELAC, is leadership Lula’s priority in 2023? “Any aspirations for Lula’s leadership in his foreign policy collide with his internal urgencies,” believes Bernabé Malacalza, a researcher in relations at the National Research Center of Argentina Conicet. Also on Saturday, the Brazilian president fired his head of the army, Defense Minister José Mucio estimating that “after the last episodes (…) of January 8, there has been a breach of trust. “Brazil’s wounds are open,” said Malacalza. “And in On the current horizon, “its greatest challenge will be to recompose its democratic fabric. it will have lost an essential basis for becoming a reliable international power capable of being accepted”. mr-edm-pbl/nzg