The two largest nations in the Americas, Brazil and the United States, have successfully fended off attacks on their democracies and will now cooperate to combat the climate problem, said President Joe Biden and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday at the White House.
“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested,” Biden told Lula, and “both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.” Meeting in the Oval Office, Biden and Lula expressed solidarity over their similar paths.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump, but two months later, a crowd of Trump fans stormed Congress, convinced that he had actually won the election.
Right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in Brazil, and Lula assumed office in January. However, immediately afterward, a mob of Bolsonaro supporters invaded the government buildings.
“We have some issues on which we can work together,” Lula told Biden. “First is to never again allow” the antidemocratic mob attacks.
Touting Brazil’s return to the international arena, Lula said his predecessor’s “world started and ended with fake news – in the morning, afternoon and at night. It seemed that he despised international relations.”
Biden, referring to Trump, quickly answered: “Sounds familiar.”
