Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been preparing for this meeting for a long time. On November 18 and 19, it is in Rio de Janeiro that the world's leaders will gather for the G20 summit. This is an event the way he likes them: theatrical and unifying, against a backdrop of Corcovado and Sugar Loaf, with himself, a smile on his lips and thumbs up, right in the center of the photo. The Brazilian president will be able to savor his consecration.
“Brazil is back!” »he repeats to anyone who will listen. Gone are the days of the far right of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), considered a true pariah internationally. Since his re-election in October 2022, Lula has visited thirty-two countries and spent more than two and a half months abroad. Including his first two mandates (2003-2010), he will have made 139 trips to 80 states and went as far as Antarctica. How many leaders can boast of such experience?
Lula has always dreamed of making his country a leading player on the world stage. “We are determined to transform Brazil into a great country! »he proclaimed again in June, in a speech given in Rio. An ambition, and even a grand design, that he intends to carry high during the next G20, however darkened by the return to the White House of Donald Trump.
The Brazilian likes to talk about his “golden decade” of the 2000s. Emboldened by strong growth, Brazil then established itself at the center of the geopolitical game. In quick succession, Lula won the organization of the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. He was at the initiative during the creation of the BRIC group in 2009 (which became BRICS after the entry of Africa of the South in 2011), the rise of the G20 in 2008, during the financial crisis. In 2004, he obtained for his country command of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, whose results were certainly disappointing and much criticized.
“Able to break the ice with anyone”
Lula wants to be the voice of a global South that is still in its infancy, particularly during negotiations at the World Trade Organization. To structure this “bloc” in the making, he is pushing for the creation of interregional summits between South America and the Arab countries or Africa. He is one of the fathers of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), formed in 2008 and bringing together the twelve countries of South America. Like the European Union (EU), then a reference for Lula, it was to include a bank and even a Parliament, sitting in Cochabamba (Bolivia). But these institutions will never see the light of day: over the course of political crises, several countries leave Unasur or disengage from it.
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