Brazil thread 2023-

[buritobr]

Former president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff is the new president of the Bank of the BRICS. She is now in her new workplace in Shangai

[Pivaru]

G1 has reported today that Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski will be resigning after Easter. He's going to turn 75 in May, so he was going to have to retire anyway. Lula will have to appoint someone to fill Lewandowski's place and his main objective seems to be getting someone young in the court.

A few names have been floated so far but I've seen three of them appearing the most. The first one is that of Manoel Carlos de Almeida Neto, who's Lewandowski's advisor, naturally, he has the retiring justice's backing. The second name is that of Bruno Dantas, president of the Federal Court of Accounts, his name seems to be the most liked one by the congress, senator Renan Calheiros (MDB), one of Lula's main allies in the upper house, is fond of this option. The final name is that of Cristiano Zanin, notable for being Lula's lawyer during Operation Car Wash and... well, for being Lula's lawyer during Operation Car Wash, that's it.

After Lula picks a name, they have to be approved by the senate, though historically, this whole process has been one giant formality which ends up with a giant rubber stamp of approval from the senators. The last time they rejected someone was back in 1894 (in fact, all five rejections happened this year). That said, there does seem to be some worry that Zanin in particular is too personally tied to Lula and due to that, the ensuing process in the senate could turn out to be a bit of a headache. I personally hope Zanin doesn't get the job, but it does seem like he's the favorite at the moment.

In October, Justice Rosa Weber will turn 75, giving Lula a second opportunity to appoint someone to the court. This will also be his final appointment during this term unless one of the other justices dies or decides to resign. The expectation is that Lula will appoint a woman to succeed Rosa.

[Red Velvet]

Yay, justice for Dilma! A high-profile international position for her after everything that was done against her.

She’s president of the BRICS Bank for around two years, until mid-2025. She will live in China, where the headquarters of the bank is located.

Besides the main 5 BRICS countries that started it (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), there are three other non-Brics countries that joined the New Development Bank since it was founded. Bangladesh; UAE and very recently Egypt too! That why you see these other flags in the picture burito shared.

[buritobr]

Bolsonaro returned to Brazil from Orlando this morning on Gol Airlines’ “Harry Potter plane”

[buritobr]

Today, Minister of Finance Fernando Haddad announced the new fiscal rule. The spending of the federal government should grow between 0.6% and 2.5% yearly. The growth of the spending cannot be higher than 70% of the growth of the revenue. Public investment in infra-structure is not included in these limits.
This rule will replace the 2016 Temer's spending cap: according to this old rule, the real public spending was frozen from 2016 to 2026, in order to reduce the public spending/GDP ratio. It was the worst fiscal rule of the history.

It was good that the new fiscal rule occupied a larger share of the news than Bolsonaro's return.

[Pivaru]

The first Datafolha poll on Lula's approval rating was released today:

Good/great - 38%
Regular - 30%
Bad/terrible - 29%

Just like with Ipec, these numbers are better than what Bolsonaro had back in 2019, but worse than Lula's numbers back at the start of his first and second term.

Datafolha also asked if people thought Lula did more or less than they expected so far:

Did more than they expected - 18%
Did as much as they expected - 25%
Did less than they expected - 51%

They also asked people about their expectations for the government going forward:

50% say they think it'll be good or great
27% think it'll be regular
21% think it'll be bad or terrible

The last question was about whether people think Lula will keep his campaign promises:

28% think he'll achieve most of them
50% think he'll achieve some, but not most
21% think he'll achieve none of his promises

[buritobr]

Today, there was an attack in a kindergarten in Blumenau, a 360,000 inhabitant city, founded by German immigrants in the 19th century, located in the state of Santa Catarina, in the south.

A 25 year old man killed 4 children between 4 and 7 years old and wounded other 4 wielding a hatchet. Attacks in schools are becoming usual in Brazil, like the ones in the US.

10 days ago, there was an attack in a school in São Paulo-SP, where a 71 year old teacher was killed after she had been stabbed.

The difference of the attack today is that it was not conducted by a student, but by someone who doesn't belong to the school. And the murder today didn't committ after the attack like many others. He was arrested.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-65192957

[Pivaru]

Three days ago, on the 11th, the government announced they'd end the tax exemption for the importation of some international goods. Brazil has a 60% tax on foreign imports, but up until now, if the import was between two natural persons and the cost of the item was less than US$50, the tax wasn't applied. This change should end up affecting the prices of items on websites like Shein, AliExpress and Shopee, which have grown in popularity in the country over the past few years.

The opposition has taken to opportunity to attack Lula. The government on the other hand has been trying to do some damage control, their justification for the change is that they want to crack down on tax fraud by companies. Lula's wife, Janja, has been tweeting about how this will "only affect business, not ordinary people" (one of the tweets got marked for misinformation earlier but apparently they removed it) and according to Folha de São Paulo, the government has been mobilizing influencers to try to get the word out. I'm not entirely sure how effective they've been though, it certainly feels that this has soured some people. If nothing else, I will point out the circumstantial evidence that the people in my social circle who voted for Lula are all not happy with this change.

This and Lula's asinine take on the Moro assassination plot last month seem to be the biggest sources of disappointment with the government so far.

In other news, yesterday, MPE, the Electoral Public Ministry, defended that Bolsonaro should become ineligible for sowing doubt over the efficiency of the electronic voting machines. There are 15 or so cases against the former president making their way through the Superior Electoral Court and it is expected that he'll be judged sometime in the month of May.

Bolsonaro and his allies have already devised a plan if he does end up becoming ineligible, they'll just do exactly what Lula did between 2018 and 2021. The plan is to just use every single resource available, go to the Supreme Court and ask for dozens upon dozens of legal recourses. Their hope is that, eventually, one of their recourses will end up on the hands of someone like Justice Kassio Nunes, who was appointed by Bolsonaro and has, in the past, ruled in favor of bolsonarista politicians who were accused of other crimes.

They also plan for Bolsonaro to be active in next year's mayoral election. His endorsements could be fairly powerful, specially in the south and southeast. PL's calculations are that, if the party does well next year, that could pressure the Supreme Court into making the former president eligible again before the 2026 election. Oh, and of course, they'll accuse the justice system of doing a witch hunt, the usual narrative.

[buritobr]

Lula was wrong in his statement about Sergio Moro, but it looks like most of people forgot it 2 weeks after.
The decision of the Ministry of Finance of closing tax evasion loopholes was correct, but the communication to the public was bad.

Although Lula's approval rate had a slight decline, the difference between approval and disapproval in all polls is still higher than the 1.8% margin of the runoff in 2022.

[Pivaru]

Today, CNN released some videos relating to the January 8 invasion. The images show many employees of the Institutional Security Bureau of the Presidency of the Republic (known in Portuguese just as GSI) walking around and just not doing much to contain the whole situation, some are even seen offering water and doing small talk with the invaders. The guy Lula appointed to head GSI, Gonçalves Dias, also appears in the footage, he walks around, tries opening some doors, goes away, reappears with some vandals following him, appears to tell them where the exit is, and just goes away again.

A statement was released by GSI arguing that their employees were trying to evacuate the 4th and 3rd floors, concentrating all the invaders in the 2nd floor until the cops arrived to arrest them. They did also mention that they were investigating the possibility of employees helping the criminals. GSI mentioned that they did not authorize the released of this footage for the public.

Gonçalves Dias isn't mentioned at all in the statement. He was supposed to appear in a hearing in the Chamber of Deputies today, but didn't go, according to him, he had to go to the doctor due to an "acute clinical case". The Chamber's Commission of Public Security has summoned him just now, if he doesn't appear this time it'll be a crime, Dias is supposed to go on the 26th. Lula called for a meeting regarding this whole incident, Dias has been told now that his situation is unsustainable and that he should resign.

The opposition is going to use this to imply that January 8 was either an inside job, or that the government let it happen even though they knew it was coming, you know, the usual stuff. For the past months, there's been an effort by the bolsonaristas to start a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (known in portuguese as CPI) investigating the acts, but the government has been opposed to that and President of the Senate Rodrigo Pacheco has been trying to prevent it from happening. Bolsonaristas are already using this episode to argue to the CPI again and they have promised "total obstruction" if Pacheco continues preventing it.

Edit: Gonçalves has resigned, he's the first of Lula's ministers to fall.

Another edit: after what happened today, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, the government's leader in congress, has come out in support of a CPI investigating January 8. From what I've heard, Zeca Dirceu, PT's leader in the Chamber of Deputies, said the government's position is that they still don't support a CPI, senator Omar Aziz has also said the same, but the evaluation is that it'll be installed regardless of what the government wants.

Three days ago, on the 11th, the government announced they'd end the tax exemption for the importation of some international goods. Brazil has a 60% tax on foreign imports, but up until now, if the import was between two natural persons and the cost of the item was less than US$50, the tax wasn't applied. This change should end up affecting the prices of items on websites like Shein, AliExpress and Shopee, which have grown in popularity in the country over the past few years.

Also, just a follow up on this. The whole strategy of trying to get internet influencers to defend it doesn't seem to have worked all that well, at least not enough for the government's liking. Yesterday, Lula asked Haddad to forget the plan of removing the tax exemption due to the backlash received. Haddad did say they'll find other solutions to combat tax fraud.

[Red Velvet]

LMAO just after Lula’s comments on USA stimulating the war in Ukraine, now the US government is amping up their proposal to the Amazon fund from the laughable $50 Million initially proposed to $500 Million now. 10 times bigger than their intention announced during Lula’s visit to Biden. You get minimally treated like your worth not when you cuddle to the US, but when you are neutral and starts leaning towards their competition.

Geopolitics is no different than business accords. You gotta know your worth so that others do too. You don’t simply choose a brand that’s ~bigger~ if they don’t give you a good offer in line with what you deserve.

500 Million dollars is definitely a start, but they still need to do lots of catching up to China, who they are lagging behind. The intention of investment calculated during the Chinese visit was $50 Billion and most of that directed not only to environment, but infrastructure cooperation; space programs; etc.

But anyway, I don’t mind turning to different places for different things. US is good for environmental cooperation; China for infrastructure projects and wider strategical ones; Russia can help with the Brazilian Nuclear project since that’s something US closed doors on us for bilateral cooperation; etc.

We’re getting treated with more respect, not less. The colonized media with provincial mentality talking as if Brazil and US were enemies now because of Lula’s comments found in shambles. Truth is that they have the same small-mind (in)capacities of former president Bolsonaro, who gave a lot of stuff to the Americans, like dropping the visa requirement, dropping the status as a in-development economy in the OMC and losing the benefits it brings, all for literally nothing other than empty promises.

There’s nothing as dumb/evil as liberal elites, I hate them so much, they’re the core scum in the country. When you’re in global south, it’s like, they constantly work AGAINST your self-interest, it’s like they try sabotaging their own country out of pure brainwash because they’ve watched too many Hollywood movies and like going to Disney or something. They see themselves as Western/part of the West when outside, nobody there sees them in that way.

[lfromnj]

What is Lula's relation with AMLO anyway?

[Pivaru]

New Genial/Quaest poll, their last one was in February:

Lula's approval rating:
Approve - 36% (-4)
Neutral - 29% (+5)
Disapprove - 29% (+9)
Don't know/didn't answer - 6% (-10)

The fall in his approval rating doesn't come from people who voted for Lula abandoning him, 68% of those who voted for him still approve the president (down from 69% in February). It has to do with Bolsonaro voters who gave him the benefit of the doubt as first turning against him, 60% disapproved of his government (up from 51% last time).

The poll also has his approval ratings by region, gender, age. education, income, race and religion.

Approval of Lula's behavior as president:
Approve - 53% (-12)
Disapprove - 40% (+11)
Don't know/didn't answer - 7% (+1)

Is Lula well intentioned:
Yes - 53%
No - 40%
Don't know/didn't answer - 7%

Do you think Lula has been able to do what he promised during the campaign?
No - 55%
Yes - 35%
Don't know/didn't answer - 9%

They also asked if people had heard bad news about Lula's government, 44% said they had, 34% said they hadn't. When asked about what was the most negative news they heard, a plurality (16%) answered the proposal to end the tax exemption on imported goods.

Expectation of the country's economy in the next 12 months:
It'll get better - 51% (-11)
It'll get worse - 29% (+9)
It'll stay the same - 16% (+2)
Don't know/didn't answer - 4% (-)

Even though most people still expect the economy to get better, a plurality expect unemployment and inflation to rise (43% and 49% respectively).

[buritobr]

Brazilian foreign policy has 2 heads. Mauro Vieira, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has pro West views. Celso Amorin, the personal advisor for foreign affairs of the President of the Republic, has pro BRICS views. Brazil has this office of "personal advisor for foreign affairs of the President of the Republic" because sometimes the President conducts foreign policy directly, without the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty), and so, he has an advisor. This is a way to become not so attached to the professional bureaucracy of the Itamaray diplomats.
In this Lula's 3rd term, there is a slightly shift for the West. During the 1st and 2nd terms (2003-2010), Celso Amorin served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the already dead Marco Aurélio Garcia, who has even more pro BRICS and pro Latin American populists than Celso Amorin, served as the personal advisor for foreign affairs of the President of the Republic.

Lula's statement on the Russia-Ukraine war he did in United Arab Emirates, in his return of the visit to China, was not good. But he had a better statement today in his visit to Portugal. Lula was also criticized for receiving Lavrov in Brasília, but members of the government said that the Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs was also invited. Celso Amorin was criticized for visiting Moscow without visiting Kiev, but he promised to visit Kiev in the next days.

Despite the not so good statement on the war, there was no impact on his popularity. According to Quaest Poll, Lula's approval rate fell because the taxation of cheap imported goods.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Lula statements on Ukraine did not receive a warm response in Portugal
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1649801483817480197

And anonymous sources complained to Reuters that the comments hurt Brazil credibility as a neutral arbitrator for the conflict

The officials, based in Brasilia, admitted that his comments generated "unnecessary noise" and told Reuters they undermined Brazil's neutrality and credibility as a broker of peace talks that Lula has proposed by gathering countries not involved in the conflict…….."Brazil does not want to give the idea that we are in favor of what Russia has done or that we have taken a side in the conflict," said one of the officials.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lula-drop-criticism-west-over-ukraine-europe-visit-sources-say-2023-04-21/

[Red Velvet]

Protests were orquestrated by Portuguese right btw, Iniciativa Liberal and ESPECIALLY André Ventura from far-right Chega, which has deep ties with the Bolsonarist Brazilians living in Portugal.

The protests were promoted by Ventura even before Ukraine comments and focused more on calling Lula a corrupt thief and because of that he shouldn’t be allowed into Portugal lmao. Ukraine, once again, is used more as a scapegoat argument in order to broaden their narrative / political goal to be bought by the “normies” camp who aren’t that political but follow what people around them say.

It’s practically a tradition for Lula or any Brazilian leader tbh to be received in a more hostile manner in Portugal than in other European countries though, regardless of reason. It always happens and the more relevant/important the Brazilian leader is, the louder. Some Portuguese (and I don’t mean all and neither a majority, but a good chunk of them clearly) are weirdly butthurt whenever it comes to Brazil or getting closer ties to Brazil.

Lula is set to go to Spain and then UK after the Portugal visit and you don’t nearly hear the same type of anti-Brazil noise from those places. Spain and France usually tend to love and be more welcoming to Brazil politically much more in a broader way (broader because I talk about politicians/people in general, individually there are many Portuguese who are very welcoming and pro-Brazilian), without the same kind of strong opposition.

One common complaint I hear about some Portuguese is how Brazilian Portuguese is making European Portuguese (theirs) disappear because of strong influence Brazilian youtubers have on Portuguese children, or how there are many Brazilians living in Portugal changing their language lol. When as a millennial/gen Z, I actually see Portuguese youth talking in English much more than in actual Portuguese and no one gets concerned about that kind of “cultural colonization” as much as they get with the Brazilian accent lol. When I stayed in Lisbon, people my age constantly used this English-Portuguese mix of expressions for literally anything and it annoyed the hell out of me. To the point I knew that if was hearing actual pure Portuguese being spoken in Portugal, it came out of a Brazilian.

I lived in Spain for almost a year and it wasn’t like that. People talked with their language (or languages, in Barcelona’s case). I think it somewhat reflects Portugal own history/trend of being automatically tied with the UK mainly but also Europe as a main part of its identity since it’s a small country with 10M population only. While a national sovereignty aspect is much more alive in bigger places like Spain; Italy; France or the UK. It’s part of why the nationalist far-right didn’t rise so quick in Portugal in comparison to other places, which is that Portugal doesn’t have as much background to be as nationalistic as those places.

Which is why when some of them act that way but towards Brazilians only, it’s completely ridiculous. I 100% get, understand and respect Portugal being even more NATO friendly than their European neighbors and even the use of English being more prevalent because of this aspect. It’s the fact that their concern for their ~sovereignty~ only ever seems to exist when it comes to whatever Brazil-related topic comes out, which inevitably sounds fake as hell and motivated by OTHER reasonings they don’t want to admit as Portugal in general doesn’t have reasons to be like that at all.

And that is the reason it’s ALWAYS the Portuguese right that appropriates an Anti-Brazil narrative. It’s actually pathetic the “nationalism” from the Chega types when many of them are actually butthurt for not having many current reasons to be nationalist these days and despite looking down on Brazil out of jealousy (as we have reasons in the conditions we are in, for better or worse), they still behaved like Bolsonaro simps. While no one here in Brazil really knows who or what an “André Ventura” is.

[Mike88]

The question regarding Lula's visit is much more complex than rightwing parties using anti-Brazil sentiment, or whatever. In fact, don't put much credibility on Ventura as he's the same person who criticizes Lula for his stance on the war, but then opens his arms to greet Bolsonaro, which is a total Putin hack.

I disagree with you Red Velvet, but Brazilian leaders actually have a tradition of being very well received in Portugal, from Café Filho to JK and FHC. Lula himself was basically a "rock star" when he visited Portugal, several times, in the 2000's, when he was President. The current issue about Lula, and why he's a bit of a divisive figure in Portugal, is because of his past corruption accusations plus, and here enters domestic politics, Lula's close bond with Portugal's most toxic politician, José Sócrates. On top of this, Lula's "ambiguous" remarks regarding the war just fueled that sentiment around Lula. And it's not just rightwing parties, several high profile center-left members have come out trashing Lula's positions and remarks. Of course, the more rightwing side uses Lula to protest, but they have little credibility like I explained above.

Regarding the Brazilian Portuguese thing, no one cares about that. That's just clickbait stories. For decades, Brazil has had a very big cultural impact in Portugal mainly due to the telenovelas, much better than the Portuguese ones IMO, not to mention singers and other Brazilian celebrities who are big household names in Portugal.

[Red Velvet]

As I said, I’m not talking of most Portuguese, but the more conservative segments who clearly do often show hatred or resentment towards Brazil/Brazilians.

I know it’s definitely not the majority of people at all, but I’m talking about how this Anti-Brazil element is way more prevalent in the Portuguese conservative segments in a way it isn’t in say, Spain or France. Which are places that their conservative counterparts simply don’t care that much about Brazil, which makes the overall perceived reception much more positive as the left tends to indeed treat Lula as a rock star in general while the conservatives simply don’t really care. In Portugal you always hear some individual people (not even that far-right conservative like in other places, even center-right types!) making this obnoxious and disproportionate kind of noise even during Lula’s first two terms.

Even the notion/joke that “Brazil is colonizing Portugal” that I sometimes hear from people makes absolute no sense to me. It’s something the Portuguese ex-boyfriend of my cousin said to me while I was visiting there, not in a negative offensive sense or anything - only to point out the increasing amount of Brazilians and Brazilian influence that he was noticing in Portugal.

Like, I just don’t understand how the presence of more Brazilians and Brazilian Portuguese is even supposed to be more “noticeable” and news-worthy than the fact many in Portuguese youth almost speak more English than Portuguese these days! Even if we’re just joking about it, shouldn’t that be way more striking and weird for the average person, or in the case of the far-right “nationalist” types, cause of concern? There were occasion where I had to ask some Portuguese people to speak to me in Portuguese instead of English, while I was Brazilian visiting freaking Portugal.

The impression I usually get in general is that the Portuguese feel much much closer to US/UK than to Brazil/the Portuguese community in general. Which I suppose it’s fine on its own and reflects the importance of European/Western identity as a main part of Portuguese national identity, but you would never see the Anglos behaving the same way. Even UK would 100% go to war with Europe before minimally turning their backs against the US.

[Mike88]

The jokes about "X-country is colonizing Portugal" is not just about Brazil. I've heard the same joke about Romanians, Ukrainians, and so on. And don't press much on the Lula thing, for the majority of the people in Portugal, Lula is a "whatever figure" that doesn't have much impact on us. In fact, the original controversy surrounding Lula's visit wasn't because of Lula himself, it was actually because of the blunt incompetence of the government in managing a simple visit from a foreign head of state, but that's another story.

Like I said, the Brazilian Portuguese thing is just clickbait stories. In the past there were also reports, I remember them, of how the Portuguese language was being "botched up" by "englishisms" and the short terms like tb, mt, pq, etc. But, no one cares. The language evolves generation after generation and we just have to accept it. Adding to this, because Portugal has a very big diaspora population and not to mention the vast Tourism sector in the country, a lot of people have good knowledge of French and English, which makes even more prevailing foreign languages here, specially English.

Portugal of course is aligned and closer with Western countries. Portugal is part of Europe, which is part of NATO. However, that doesn't mean that Portugal should have bad relations with Brazil, on the contrary, we share a history and a link that should be preserved for social, economic and political reasons, but, I also understand that Brazil has different interests. Brazil is a vast continental country, with its own strategy and plans and we have to accept it, even if we disagree with it or not. To compare, look at the relationship between the UK and India, both share a strong link in history and culture, but both have different interests and goals for their place in the world.

[Red Velvet]

Portugal of course is aligned and closer with Western countries. Portugal is part of Europe, which is part of NATO. However, that doesn't mean that Portugal should have bad relations with Brazil, on the contrary, we share a history and a link that should be preserved for social, economic and political reasons, but, I also understand that Brazil has different interests. Brazil is a vast continental country, with its own strategy and plans and we have to accept it, even if we disagree with it or not. To compare, look at the relationship between the UK and India, both share a strong link in history and culture, but both have different interests and goals for their place in the world.

Yup, I completely agree with this particular paragraph. Brazil position has nothing to do with Portugal and Portugal position has nothing to do with Brazil either. I wish the mainstream media types were aware of this though, instead of acting scandalized.

[Mike88]

Portugal of course is aligned and closer with Western countries. Portugal is part of Europe, which is part of NATO. However, that doesn't mean that Portugal should have bad relations with Brazil, on the contrary, we share a history and a link that should be preserved for social, economic and political reasons, but, I also understand that Brazil has different interests. Brazil is a vast continental country, with its own strategy and plans and we have to accept it, even if we disagree with it or not. To compare, look at the relationship between the UK and India, both share a strong link in history and culture, but both have different interests and goals for their place in the world.

Yup, I completely agree with this particular paragraph. Brazil position has nothing to do with Portugal and Portugal position has nothing to do with Brazil either. I wish the mainstream media types were aware of this though, instead of acting scandalized.

Many pundits here in Portugal have pointed out that the Foreign office should for once understand that present-day Brazil is not the same of the 70's, 80's, 90's or even early 2000's, it has changed and that Portugal, and other countries, should recognized that. But, because of this change, Brazil has also to understand that it cannot "dar uma no cravo e outra na ferradura" (give with one hand and take with the other) and not expect reactions, some of them very negative.

[Red Velvet]

Portugal of course is aligned and closer with Western countries. Portugal is part of Europe, which is part of NATO. However, that doesn't mean that Portugal should have bad relations with Brazil, on the contrary, we share a history and a link that should be preserved for social, economic and political reasons, but, I also understand that Brazil has different interests. Brazil is a vast continental country, with its own strategy and plans and we have to accept it, even if we disagree with it or not. To compare, look at the relationship between the UK and India, both share a strong link in history and culture, but both have different interests and goals for their place in the world.

Yup, I completely agree with this particular paragraph. Brazil position has nothing to do with Portugal and Portugal position has nothing to do with Brazil either. I wish the mainstream media types were aware of this though, instead of acting scandalized.

Many pundits here in Portugal have pointed out that the Foreign office should for once understand that present-day Brazil is not the same of the 70's, 80's, 90's or even early 2000's, it has changed and that Portugal, and other countries, should recognized that. But, because of this change, Brazil has also to understand that it cannot "dar uma no cravo e outra na ferradura" (give with one hand and take with the other) and not expect reactions, some of them very negative.

Oh there are multiple Brazils going on simultaneously, which is something to be resolved because the elites had their say for way too long. I believe the entire global south, not just Brazil, is under a transition period where they tend to become more assertive and driven by their self-interests but they all still suffer from some significant level of influence from those groups who are a minority but have lots of power/influence in making themselves heard. Which is where the mixed signals probably come from.

I think we only really disagree regarding Portugal’s natural position being inherently with NATO/US-alliance sphere of influence just because it’s European though. Europe and US to me are natural competitors and the only big common ground that pushes them together is Russia. Though I appreciate the understanding that we naturally have different interests even if we disagree on what exactly those interests would be.

As I said, despite the mainstream media hysteria on the matter, there are many nuances to the discussion that more and more Portuguese are becoming aware of, even if Portugal in general tends to be even more NATO friendly than its neighbors like France or Spain. Like in this video, I think the Portuguese woman expresses pretty well not just the Brazilian position but how she questions Portugal and European role as a whole in the new world order dynamics.

https://twitter.com/OssandaLiber/status/1650057678134157313?cxt=HHwWgoC9weitl-Yt...
And she’s apparently a conservative, from the nationalist “new right” brand, which shows again the distinctive sides from both the right and left emerging.

https://twitter.com/OssandaLiber/status/1647887515922186240

https://twitter.com/OssandaLiber/status/1647891595168034819

[Mike88]

The position of Portugal is clear: aligned with the EU, NATO and Western countries. There's no ambiguity on this and, in my opinion, Ukraine should be aided to fight Russia till the end, as a negotiated peace deal is almost an illusion, like I wrote in the Russia-Ukraine thread. About Ossanda Liber, she's currently forming a new party, New Right (ND), but what she said isn't that different from what Costa or even Montenegro are saying about the Portugal-Brazil relationship, one thing is the relationship with Brazil, another is our position in the world and regarding the war.

[Red Velvet]

https://twitter.com/lazarorosa25/status/1650836206945546242?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoog...
Great moment in Lula’s speech to the Portuguese Parliament today.

Some few far-right and right-wing Portuguese members of congress tried interrupting the speech and were reprimanded with anger by the president of Portuguese Assembly, Augusto Santos Silva, whose attitude was applauded by most congress members who stood to clap.

I love how he angrily demands same respect that is given to the Portuguese president and literally demands for those people to not put shame in Portugal’s name. I knew the Anti-Brazil butthurt resented crowd was always a (very loud and amplified by media) minority in the country like they always were. Most Portuguese love and respect Brazil and the difference of positions

Lula heads to Spain today to also sign deals with this other Iberian partner and then I think he heads to UK for the Charles ceremony, but not sure.

[Farmlands]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/474596/russia-suffers-global-rebuke-invasion.aspx

This number took me by surprise, but a whopping 75 percent of Brazilians currently disapprove of the Russian leadership, the most in all of South America. Maybe Red Velvet is not the spokesperson for the people of Brazil he seems to believe he is, nor is the concept of a Global South a true alliance.