Brazil’s new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will meet Joe Biden at the White House on Friday as the two leaders move to “reset” relations between their countries deeply strained during Jair Bolsonaro’s final years in office.
A senior Brazilian foreign ministry official said Bolsonaro behaved “almost like a groupie” towards then-US president Donald Trump. When Biden took over in 2021 the bilateral relationship “was completely scaled down”, he said. “Now it is time to pick it up and get back to work.”
In contrast with the far-right Bolsonaro, the leftwing Lula is considered to have a much greater political affinity with Biden, with the two men sharing a history of involvement with trade unions as well as a stated objective to address climate change.