 America, and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti America's team, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast Thursdays at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, right here on YouTube Live, including channels for the Convo Couch, Popular Resistance, and Code Pink. Post broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, radindymedia.com, and now under podcast at popularresistance.org. Today's episode, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Brazil. I'm really happy to welcome back to our program my friend, activist, journalist, and editor with Casatune News, Camilla Escalante. Welcome, Camilla. Really, really happy that you could join us today. Oh, thank you for having me again, and I'm really glad that you're as enthusiastic and excited about, you know, everything that's going on in Latin America right now, and specifically Brazil. Well, let's, let me give our audience a little bit of background about what we're going to talk about today, because I think you and I both agree that this visit from the Russian Foreign Minister to Brazil and Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua as well is really pretty significant. So it's a big message to the hemisphere and the global south. So let's give the audience a little bit of background. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Brasilia on Monday for talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Maro Vieira, and the latest of a series of bilateral encounters, which are ruffling the United States. And we'll talk about some of those comments coming out of Washington, DC. Lavrov arrived just as Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, returned from a state visit to China, and both missions are part of a diplomatic reset Lula has pursued since returning to power this year, as he strives to recover Brazil's international reputation after his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, dismantled Brazil's established tradition of cooperation. For Brazil, that means rebuilding and maintaining ties with all partners, regardless of geopolitical tensions elsewhere. Lavrov and Vieira said that their talks had also focused on energy and trade about a quarter of agricultural powerhouses Brazil's fertilizer imports come from Russia, while the two countries engaged in a record 9.8 billion US in bilateral trade last year. Brazil was Lavrov's first start, excuse me, first stop on a week-long Latin America tour that will also include, as mentioned earlier, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. So, Camilla, this is really pretty exciting and a huge message for the, I would argue for the rest of the world, not just the hemisphere, including the United States, but really a big message as to what the Brazilian president sees for his country, the hemisphere, and the geopolitics in general. Yeah, precisely. I think that Lula and everyone that he has in his cabinet and around him and this government of Brazil really sees itself as a principled actor. It sees it really married to the Constitution and to a certain style of foreign policy and diplomacy and it is going to take its own sort of particular path with its own characteristics internationally. Obviously, Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, said it himself. He's made comments about how Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are paving their own path, a very distinct path, a very independent path for their people. He didn't put Brazil in that category and, you know, it's very obvious why. The Brazilian government is made up of a much wider coalition of different parties, different political ideologies and approaches and so they're not quite ready to say in Brazil that this is some sort of revolutionary government, but it's a government that domestically is trying to provide a lot of social programs, really trying to fix everything that's wrong with the country in order to make a much better standard of living for the average Brazilian person. But then internationally, which is what everyone is so concerned about now in the press frenzy that we're seeing right now, I think that they are also taking their own unique position as far as Latin America goes. You could say that it's more aligned with the position of Bolivia, which Bolivia says it's a neutral actor. It says, you know, it has kind of condemned NATO in some ways, but hasn't taken any too, you know, strong of a stated position as the very close and good reliable allies of Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. But in Brazil's case, I think when it makes these small statements or these remarks that we've heard from Lula, from his foreign minister, and from his presidential adviser, Celso Amorim, these statements say a lot to the world. It's very difficult for them to make bold statements about what's going on in the proxy war in Ukraine without getting hit by this giant storm of media slander, both internationally and from the Brazilian press. And so they've had to be very careful in the first three months of government with what they've said and what their position has been. And so for a lot of people looking from the outside and even for a lot of Brazilians, I think it has been their position towards the conflict has seemed a little bit murky, a little bit unclear. And one of the reasons why it was unclear, of course, was because in the UN General Assembly, a vote was taken and it was an anti-Russian resolution that Brazil actually voted in favor for. They voted in favor for it, but they actually had a hand in modifying some of the texts of that resolution, because they said that it didn't have enough, leave enough space for dialogue and trying to work with Russia. Brazil believes that this Russian special military operation in Ukraine is in violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And so for that reason, they have condemned it. Now, at the same time, we have heard the statements from Lula saying that he believes that currently the European Union is directly involved in the conflict and that the EU and the US are actually encouraging the war and incentivizing the war by sending arms to Ukraine. And for that reason, he says that we can no longer call the US and the EU neutral actors. They're, of course, not actors who could be said to be not involved. And so this just qualifies them from joining any sort of process towards peace in terms of Brazil's proposal to bring people around to a table, different countries that have the potential to mediate the conflict. And so he has specifically said that he believes China is, of course, the most important actor right now that could help negotiate peace. And China has a peace plan that Brazil supports. He also mentioned India and Indonesia as countries who want peace. And of course, Brazil as well. But he says that that simply, you know, given all of the way in which the United States and the EU only talk about war, they don't talk about peace, that that's just simply not their objective, so they can't be a part of this process. Then as if, you know, if anyone were to think that these were kind of just offhand remarks that he that he, you know, perhaps would have to back down or backpedal on, we heard, you know, we heard other people around him double down on these. You know, his foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, had extended meetings with Sergey Lavrov, and they held that joint press conference and everybody saw how friendly the two ministers were. They held a press conference in which foreign minister Mauro Vieira said that he, once again, he reiterated, as he said in previous occasions, that Brazil is against the unilateral coercive measures, the illegal sanctions against Russia, and that those don't help in any way to deescalate the conflict. These are illegal sanctions that are being imposed by all NATO countries, but they're not being imposed by the countries of the global south, and that includes, of course, Latin America and the Caribbean. And most people in Latin America absolutely disagree with the imposition of those illegal sanctions. Then Lavrov in that same press conference said very explicitly that Brazil and Russia have the same approach to international issues taking place right now around the world. He also said that this government of Brazil currently has the same vision for, you know, different multilateral organizations and the way in which their country should be participating in those forums and those organizations. And further, he said, you know, he reiterated that Russia is a proponent, a supporter and endorser of Brazil's bid to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. And that's really important because it makes very clear that it's not the United States, certainly not Europe or their allies, who wants to see Brazil take that permanent spot or become a permanent member and have, you know, veto power on the UN Security Council. It's actually Russia. And of course, China would also be supporting Brazil's bid. At a time like this, when we're in the middle of a conflict with this massive propaganda campaign against Russia and, you know, these accusations of Russia committing, you know, whatever people are saying about what's going on in Ukraine, saying that Putin is committing war crimes and all sorts of things like that, you have Russia coming and saying, we want Brazil on the UN Security Council as a permanent member, as well as India. And we're going to support that. That means that they truly believe that Brazil is either a neutral actor or on their side. And I believe a lot of people are starting to see that Brazil is possibly very firmly on the side of Russia. So that's really important. Before this trip, before we received Sergey Lavrov here in Latin America, a few weeks ago, Lula's presidential adviser, Celso Amorim, who was his foreign minister during his previous governments, took a little secret trip, which came out in the press after, but they didn't want to announce it beforehand, to Moscow. And there he met with Sergey Lavrov and other officials, and he had his own personal meeting with Putin. I mean, that's really important. And this is something that the United States is paying very close attention to, because Celso Amorim is not just, you know, some random low-level diplomat or anything like that. He's a special presidential envoy. And this is the closest you can get to Lula. It's in some ways even more important than sending the foreign minister. And so he took that trip. Now we have Lavrov here. And then we also, you know, Lula received an invitation from Putin to go visit, to organize an official visit to Moscow as soon as he's able to. And the response was that they're going to look at organizing that trip very soon. Also, Maro Vieira, the foreign minister, was invited by Lavrov to come to Moscow. So he's making all of these, all these sort of exchanges are taking place. And at the same time, Zelensky has seen this and has actually, you know, he lashed out saying that he doesn't agree with some of the statements that are being made by these different Brazilian officials, and that, you know, Lula is mistaken. And he says that Lula needs to go travel to Ukraine and see the situation for himself. And, you know, Lula has only connected with Zelensky via Zoom, via, you know, video call. And so, you know, there's no indication that they're going to be planning that. I think it really speaks for itself, you know, what's going on here in terms of the alignment. Brazil is certainly not, can't be said to be an ally of Zelensky, the way in which, for example, Gabriel Boric is, and the way in which unfortunately some of the leaders, the prime ministers of the Caribbean are because they allowed him to speak and give a presentation at the CARECOM heads of state and government summit. And so, you know, that's certainly not the case with Brazil. It's becoming clearer and clearer. And, you know, I think it's also, we also saw the way in which Brazil was received to say the least warmly by the Chinese during this extended trip to China, where hundreds of people were part of Lula's delegation. I mean, we can come back to that and speak about that a little more. But it's very clear that these two countries, these two super important world powers, believe that Brazil is the most important actor in all of the Western Hemisphere to ally with them. It is obviously, you know, the largest economy in the global south of the Western Hemisphere. And, you know, they just, there's this whole general feeling that Brazil is back in terms of diplomacy, in terms of taking leadership in the world. So, you know, things are getting really exciting. Dilma Rousseff, you know, took the leadership of the New Development Bank. They're in Shanghai last week officially. And they're talking about all doing all sorts of things with the New Development Bank, the BRICS Bank. They want to help finance these other emerging countries, not just the BRIC countries, but smaller countries that don't have access to financing to be able to, you know, focus efforts on really key infrastructure projects in their different countries. One of those countries could be Nicaragua. And both Lula and Dilma had said in their remarks that they think that that's what the bank should be dedicated to is helping these different countries without getting these countries into suffocating debt, the way in which Argentina was plunged into suffocating debt and it's still suffering from now because of the IMF loan. They said, we don't need that sort of a banker financial institution. We want to help, you know, emerging economies around the world and the peoples. And so this is, you know, things are going to start changing quite a bit. And with that, you know, we're going to see all sorts of attempts to sabotage, of course, this Brazilian government because it's not doing what it's being told to do from Washington. I think it's, it's really, really fascinating to watch all of this unfold. And I think it's, to me, from the outside looking in, it's really, really important, as you mentioned, this temperament coming from Lula, that, you know, on one hand, we're recognizing, you know, we're calling Russia for invading Ukraine, but also it's like, hey, we don't want to see it escalate. We see who's fueling, you know, putting gasoline on the fire, Europe and NATO and the United States. And no weapons, we're not going to escalate any of that. So, I mean, it's a really, it's a, it's a really important, in my opinion, a really important balance that he's striking. And of course, I would say given, you know, Dilma now at the, at the bank, the new bank, and as you mentioned, focusing on loans investment in emerging economies, Brazil's really focused on main, on striking a balance to maintain global peace so that everyone can develop, particularly those countries that have never had the opportunity to do that, or for at least in the last 500 years have not had the opportunity to do that. It's a really, it's super, super important. It's so profound and it's such a, it's own, it's very simple, actually, in what he's trying to, it's not going to be easy to do it, but it's very, it's like we need global peace for everyone. And it just so happens, you know, our major trading partner is China and, but, but I don't think Lula is interested in excluding the United States. It's just that the relationship with the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean has to change. And that's the piece that, you know, a lot of us aren't particularly hopeful about. And again, I keep going back to this analogy in the audience, we'll know this as well, particularly coming out of the September 2021 select summit here in Mexico City, where you know, the vision, Amla's vision was we, the uniting all of the Americas at a roundtable, where everyone is an equal versus the current structure that's a rectangular table with the United States at the head and calling all the shots. So I don't, some of these countries would move on without the United States, but I think like in the case of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, there is an attempt perhaps to, to stay allied to a degree with the US, but the relationship has to change and how possible that is, you know. Right. Well, one of the interviews that was given by Celso Amonim to the Global Times was he was saying that, you know, the visit that Lula made to Washington, which was his third, his third foreign visit outside of the country since he took office, the first, of course, being Argentina, he met with Alberto Fernandez and participated in that select meeting. Then he went to Uruguay and then he went to the US. It was very short and he didn't get this massive state welcome. I mean, you can tell that the United States obviously wanted to start off on the right foot with this new Brazilian administration, but it was nothing special. In fact, most of the trip that Lula made was meeting with US labor, meeting with Democratic Congress lawmakers, but not necessarily most important ones that say some of the ones that the Brazilian government sees as being more progressive, but not that's not really the government itself. Those are just Democrats. And so, you know, his agenda was a little bit and obviously always meeting with, you know, some Brazilians abroad there in the US, but it was nothing like what we saw. They didn't make any agreements or anything large. There weren't any huge announcements and Celso Amonim says that was just a, you know, it was like a political trip and didn't really have like a lot of dimensions to it. This trip to China that Lula made, first to Shanghai, obviously, to the New Development Bank, and he did other things as well. He visited the Huawei headquarters. He got a whole tour, all sorts of other tours and meetings he met with the head of the Congress and he met with Xi Jinping in Beijing. And I mean, this was just a really incredible trip overall, lasting several days when he was supposed to go but fell ill at the end of March. There were already several people or a large number of people already in China at the time that he had to postpone because of illness. And they went ahead with their agenda and they came back with a lot of really important agreements. The Apex Brazil, which is an agency of the state for trade and investment, they held an entire conference there with a large number of Brazilian business people and Chinese business people. And they went ahead and signed away their agreements. And so by the time this was rescheduled for Lula to take the trip, we're talking hundreds of people from senators to state governors to ministers, as well as business people went to China to try to bring back the best possible deals for the country because they consider the Brazilian government that the economy was just left to its own devices that some of the foreign investment left the country during Bolsonaro years, those four years, and that it actually deindustrialized to an extent. Among many other problems, obviously the environmental degradation and the Amazon, all of the illegal activity, the illegal mining and the violence, obviously was able to increase during that period. And they're having to crack down now. So we're in a period of recovery in Brazil. And so they believe that China is one of the most important, if not the most important partner for Brazil right now in trying to boost its economy, to bring back investment, and very importantly, to help in the auto sector, but also fulfill some climate commitments and things like that. So a range of things came out of that China meeting. And I think it should be very clear to everyone that this is a country that's aligned with China and Russia. So far we've yet to see other trips, but we're still in the first 100 days right now of government. So going back to what the Brazilian government has said about what they want to see in terms of the conflict, it is really simple. They've said, Brazil wants to promote peace. It's ready to discuss with a group of countries to bring a group of countries together that are willing to talk about peace. This is essentially the conversation that they've had with Xi and with the Russian authorities so far. It's nothing specific. They don't have their own peace plan. And what Lula said when, in his remarks, when he basically said that the U.S. and the EU are not, they're not exactly helping to deescalate the conflict was very basic. He really just said that Olaf Schultz came to Brazil. He made that trip. It's one of the most important foreign dignitaries that have arrived in Brazil since Lula was sworn in, and he asked to buy missiles. We have on the one hand the South Com commander, General Laura Richardson, coming to Latin America, going around to different countries, asking to take the military equipment that exists in the country to send it to Ukraine and saying they're going to replenish it with U.S. military equipment. This is the Russian equipment that many nations have bought. They want to take the Russian equipment and then replace it with this U.S. equipment. They're literally begging for this. And then you have Olaf Schultz, the German chancellor coming to South America as well, and speaking to these different presidents also asking to buy weapons to send to Ukraine, either to be donated or just to buy them and transport them there. Obviously all of the countries declined, but at the time Lula didn't say a whole lot about it. He was just like, this is an important, important visit from Schultz. Now he's saying he came to buy missiles, and that's precisely what they're coming for. It's not for diplomacy. It's not really for strengthening trade or economic relations. It's because they're trying to continue fueling the war. At the same time, the U.S. and Europe and all of their major media is telling the citizens of our countries of the North that Ukraine is winning the war, that they're trying to bleed, rush out, drain them all of their resources and capacity to keep fighting. I mean, if they're doing so well and they've been doing so well supposedly for the last year, why do they have this campaign of begging around our region? It's truly bizarre. And so I think it's just becoming undeniable to the point where Celso Amorim and Maro Viera and Lula have to say something about it. And so, I mean, their remarks have not been anti-U.S. This is how it's going to be framed in the media now is that Brazil has turned on the U.S., but they're not even anti-U.S. remarks. They're simply stating the obvious. So John Covey, the national security, or the, what is it, national security advisor, spokesperson, is it? Well, anyways, John Kirby, he made these remarks very promptly after he heard the comments of the Brazilian authorities saying that they were just regurgitating Russian and Chinese propaganda, but they said very little. I mean, very little was said. So then after that, we saw the White House spokesperson Karim say that they don't agree with this and they don't like the tone of the remarks by the Brazilian officials. So it's very clear that they're watching very closely what the Brazilian government is doing for them to be issuing these responses so quickly. It means that they are following everything that's happening with Brazil. Normally, you would get a response, you know, some sort of communication from the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia. In this case, the White House is reacting instantly to it. And so on the mainstream media, there was, I'm not sure if I saw this on your Twitter feed, a headline from yesterday, Lula poses up to America's enemies. I mean, that's not subtle. It's really clear what the narrative that Washington wants to create and or the fear that they have. It's like, let me ask you this with Russia, Brazil and China. There's clearly a trade relationship there, Russia, Brazil, Brazil to China, which basically covers Eastern Europe, what's becoming more and more Eurasia, but Russia to the hemisphere of the Americas and then across the Pacific to Asia to China. I mean, that to me is a really not just the trade that involves the three countries because it's a symbiotic trade relationship that all three of them are involved in, but it's pulling in three distinct parts of the world, which is huge. And then you have the new development bank as well. And then you also have Brazil and China agreeing to respect their national currencies in their trade, which Marco Rubio went ballistic about the other day. But I mean, he actually said that the U.S. isn't going to have the ability to use sanctions anymore because the U.S. dollar's not going to be the predominant or the single global currency. I mean, that was pretty, we've all known that, but it was pretty amazing to hear that come from the United States. But there is, I mean, don't you think there, I mean, or I've asked you if I'm, am I incorrect or correct in seeing that? I'm using my hands here to point out the audience, but you have Russia and then across the Atlantic to Brazil and then across the Pacific to China. That's a huge trade route between three, you know, really large countries economically and population-wise and landmass-wise. Yeah. And so that's one factor is the trade factor. But Brazil has other interests in common with these countries, other ways in which they can cooperate. And it's really, it'll be really interesting to see what happens. You know, it's very obvious and open that Russia has sold weapons and provided sort of defense assistance to Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. And that's precisely something that they're always going to be discussing during these visits and certainly the visit that Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is on now to these countries. But also, you know, I interviewed just a few weeks ago a leader of one of the urban housing movements in Brazil. The person I interviewed is Gabriel Araujo. He is the leader of the MNLM, which is the National Movement for the Fight for Housing. It's a really, you know, important urban housing movement, but they are also part of an anti-imperialist committee that does a lot of really great solidarity with other countries. And they do so with the understanding that Brazil is a very important country for solidarity, for kind of going off in a tangent here, but a very important country because they actually noted with regards to Nicaragua that Nicaragua is signing all these deals for development and infrastructure projects with China. And China is coming over with, you know, these construction companies and advisors and they're going to help with housing and, you know, roads and things like that. And he's actually saying we support China and we support China coming here with the BRI and everything else. But we think that this should be coming from Latin America too. We think that with all of the construction industry in Brazil, that actually Brazil could be providing the same sorts of support for small nations like Nicaragua and we wouldn't need this other world power coming, you know, across the world to do all of that stuff. So they actually have a bit of a critical position on that saying, well, we think that China needs to have an important role here and they're a very important ally to us economically and otherwise, why isn't Brazil filling that position? But what he said regarding Brazil's position, so this is just to share what the position is of some of the social movements, the anti-imperialist perspective, which is not always the same as the government, he said that it'd be very important for Brazil to strengthen relations with the Russian defense industry, you know, that Brazil was once the fourth largest military industry in the world and today its arms industry is deteriorating. Lula did visit a naval shipyard to talk about restarting Brazil's nuclear submarine construction program in partnership with France. But they're saying, you know, there's a lot more that Brazil should resume in the defense industry and other partnerships with Russia. So, you know, if Brazil were to go in that direction and have much closer cooperation in defense with Russia, it would be very interesting because then we're talking about a fourth country here and you have to remember, like, this is Brazil and this current trip is being, you know, is being categorized in the same group with longtime allies of Russia, Cuba, the Sandinistas and the Chavistas. And so, at the same time, people might have noticed that the United States had increased military cooperation with Brazil under Bolsonaro. In fact, Trump offered Brazil under Bolsonaro to become a major non-NATO ally, a special designation given by the United States to countries that are not part of the North Atlantic, they're not situated in the North Atlantic. And, you know, Brazil's actually very far south. And so, you know, they would be joining the ranks of Argentina and Colombia in that designation and receiving, you know, special military training and equipment and eligible for all sorts of help from the US. I mean, it's completely absurd and the US actually provides all of these things and more to countries even without this special designation. We know that because there's, you know, military bases in all sorts of countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, such as Haiti. I mean, Haiti is not going to be considered a major non-NATO ally. And so, all of these different joint military exercises have been going on in Brazil during this period, you know, organized between, you know, organized by Southcom or... Those exercises are going on now or when Trump and Bolsonaro are under? They were. They have been going on under Bolsonaro, but they're actually going to continue now because at the end of Bolsonaro's administration, he agreed to hold this upcoming military exercise, which I believe is going to be in the fall, you know, between the two armies organized by Southcom. And I don't know in what way Lula has the ability to, you know, stop them from taking place if it's something that the Brazilian government had previously agreed to. It seems like it's something that's just going to be carried out. And so, just this week, the Army South were in, were in São Paulo for a second planning meeting. The first planning meeting happened at the end in December when Bolsonaro was still in power and so this is going to be another one. So, that really makes things really prickly. It's very, if you see what's going on this week, General Laura Richardson, the Southcom commander, has made visits to so far Argentina and Chile to meet with the defense ministers and also, I think, the police and, you know, all these other talks. And so, it's very clear what their position is. Similar... A big protest in Argentina against her visit was kind of... Yeah, that was great. That's how it should be every time. We see this in Panama. You know, the Panamanian movements and unions have been really good about protesting against the different visits from the US government and military. But in most countries, these visits take place without a peep for most people. So, it's very great to see that that happened in Buenos Aires. I don't know if anything similar happened in Santiago and Chile, but so their position is very clear. We'll have to see in the coming months what happens in terms of Brazil allowing there to be a US military presence in the country because there is a very large presence and there's been some revelations. I'm not sure who originally broke the story, but that there were a large number of CIA agents in Brazil in the last year, let's say. And so, I think it's going to be really interesting to see where things go from here in terms of the US having a foothold in Brazil as politically and otherwise Brazil is forging these ties with the other BRICS countries and trying to strengthen relations with other countries of Latin America and be sort of a global leader from our corner of the world. It's really exciting. You mentioned these US military assets in Brazil and the upcoming Southcom exercises. I think this is a really good example of how presidents inherit policy and it doesn't, you know, you don't just undo that, especially, you know, in the case of a constitutional change of government, an electoral change of government versus, you know, a hot revolution. There's policies that you inherit and they're not necessarily undone, you know, in the first days of your administration or even in your first administration. And I think that that's true and not just in Brazil, but all over the Americas right now with all these new left of center presidents that we have. They cannot necessarily undo everything in your first administration and in many cases, your own, the Constitution only allows for one term, such as in Colombia, four years and here in Mexico, six years. And you have to constantly be building for the future. And, you know, and we've talked about this on many episodes, you know, the importance of social movements, labor movements to build that ground movement to ensure, you know, a new administration's project can continue. But this is a really good example with Lula that how do you just come in in a hundred days and all of a sudden just say, okay, every US asset out of the country. But it could also be a good reason to be more friendly with Russia to keep a balance of power just inside your own country. Well, yeah, that's precisely what they seem to be doing because at the same time, there was that little, you know, scandal or controversial event when the military of Brazil allowed the Iranian ships to dock at Rio de Janeiro. And so that was upsetting to a lot of US lawmakers. They made a lot of comments about it, both online, including, I think, Ted Cruz, but also in different interviews, noting that Brazil had this very friendly disposition to Iran. But if you ask the Iranians, and if you ask the Brazilian government, this is just a very normal cordial relationship as they've always had. There's no reason for them to be hostile. And Brazil has said on numerous occasions that the legal sanctions just like the ones imposed against Russia by these Western countries are just as invalid when it comes to Iran. Iran is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world and has been for a while now. And it makes it makes things extremely difficult in the country. But it could be said that Iran is one of the countries that is most sanctioned, but that is has able to mitigate a lot of the effects of those sanctions. But it does obviously, you know, affect a country's ability to develop. But so, you know, it seems that based on the comments that we heard from the Brazilian government that they don't consider, you know, those they don't consider those valid. So they're not, you know, they're not really concerned at this time about secondary sanctions. And I think it was asked in a press conference at the State Department whether or not the Brazilian government would be subject to these secondary sanctions. And I guess Ned, I believe it was Ned Price on that day, he said that, you know, at this time, he didn't have an answer, but that they consider their relationship with Brazil to be really important and that each country makes its own sovereign decisions. They always say funny things like that. But the fact is, is that they're outraged by anything, any sort of positive interaction with Iran, which, you know, the closest allies in Latin America are Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba obviously have very positive relations. But now we can add Brazil back to that. And Celso Amorim in that same interview with the Global Times this weekend said that, you know, one of the most important reasons why it's important to end with dollar dominance in trade is because the example he gave was that when they were trying to trade chicken poultry meat with Iran that they weren't able to and it created large difficulties because of the illegal sanctions. And he said illegal sanctions or unilateral sanctions, that's how he frames it. It makes it difficult for us to do just regular commerce with the countries we work with. And so it's very clear that they consider this to be an important ally. And so it, you know, I don't really know how long they can keep up the charade. Brazil and Washington pretending to be friends, pretending to be close allies, all the stuff that Biden said, you know, during the trip, Lula's trip to Washington, they made it seem as if they have all the same values, they made it seem like they have the same problems. Obviously, they were comparing January 8th of this year in Brazil, what took place with the storming of the three powers to the January 6th thing that happened in Washington, they're basically saying it's the same. They were saying that, you know, they both the two countries have to confront fake news that they have to confront extremism, these sorts of things. I think a lot of what was stated there was very superficial. And at the end of the day, they really don't have the same worldview. And I hope it becomes more and more clear. And I hope that Lula and, you know, his, his, you know, the people around him realize that they're just going to get totally slandered from here on that they're going to come under the attack by the media, both, you know, foreign media and Brazilian media. And it's going to be very difficult to stay on everyone's good side. And that instead of like trying to please everyone, they should, you know, take more of a leadership role, as far as the region is concerned, the way in which President Maduro has taken a very important leadership role, despite his country being much, much, much smaller than Brazil. So I guess we'll have to see how long that that charade can continue. They are very important trade partners, Brazil and the US. So they can't just ditch them. Yeah, neither one. They just have two different, two antithetical views of how, like you said, of how that should be done, two different, completely different views of, you know, how the world should be operating, you know, and Lula is definitely, you know, promoting and living in a multipolar world. Not dominated by the United States. And Washington is still in that hegemonic, you know, lateral US world, which, you know, I would argue just really, you get out of North America, United States specifically, North America in general in the US as well. The multi-world is already here. And a good part of the global population is living in a multipolar world now has been. And that's what they support. And so the other thing I wanted to say, because I just saw this hilarious video package on France 24 in English, they, you know, they reported on Lavrov's visit to Brazil, and they showed these images of the people protesting Lavrov's visit. And it was literally like four people. I saw other images where it was like 11 people. So, you know, between all the ones that I saw on Twitter and the ones that I've seen in this news package, it's just very clear that it was extraordinarily small, the protest against Lavrov's visit, you know, by either Ukrainian Brazilians or whether they were just supporters of Ukraine that were there, you know, around the government buildings when he came to make the visits. And I think that's just indicative of the whole region. I'm not totally sure perhaps if Lavrov were to travel to Chile, he would receive, you know, he'd be, he'd be met with a huge protest. I don't know, but certainly not in any of the countries he's going to. There is very strong pro-Russian sentiment in Venezuela, in Cuba, and Nicaragua, like undoubtedly, specifically Nicaragua and Cuba. And that it's the same thing in Africa. You, we've seen labor unions and around South Africa, you know, they go out and they've protested and they've brought, they've protested, you know, just normal things against the government or whatever it is. But they have brought out on occasion Russian flags as have several countries of our region. And I think that's becoming more and more, you know, of a dominant sentiment here. People are tired of being lied to by the media. They think that sanctions are a sham. They think that the United Nations system is being, is being used in order to attack small countries of the global south. People have noticed that the ICC, the International Criminal Court, is used only to attack, essentially, leaders of Africa that no, no other, you know, crime committing leaders of the global north have ever been tried at the ICC. So I think, you know, everyone is figuring out what's going on. The, the understanding of the conflict here or in Latin America is quite different from, from what it is in the global north. And I think even people in the global north are starting to have their doubts because they're seeing the cost of living rise, they're seeing inflation. And so I don't really know, you know, I think that it's going to be very difficult for the media and of course the, the governments they work for to be able to continue selling us, you know, this, this war and continue extracting from people. But in the case of Latin America, they haven't extracted anything. We haven't, you know, or Latin American governments haven't sent any funds. What kind of funds would they have to send to Ukraine? They haven't sent weapons. Obviously, they're not sending personnel or anything else. So we just don't want to be involved. And that's not, that's not just a reflection of the policies and the positions of the governments, but of the entire populations of all of the countries throughout Asia, throughout Africa and Latin America. No, it's really clear in Brazil is a, is a big voice in, in that sentiment, but much of the global south too. We want those resources to build, you know, peace and an economy for our own people. We don't want that money and resources going to fuel more war in Ukraine, which could, you know, any minute spill over to, you know, a global conflict. It's really clear that the money, the time, the resources are going, you know, to building our own people, our own economies. And, and that's where peace comes from. You've got a stable economy. You've got people that are able to improve their lives. And these are, you know, throughout the hemisphere, there are, it's a spectrum of economies that people voted, you know, through candidates. Since I, October of 2020 through Brazil last fall, you know, one step left of center social democratic types of economies to revolutionary left economies, but the focus is on raising countries raising their own people up. That's China. That's the example China has set for itself in the world. And Brazil is a really vocal government about that. The resources aren't going to go to Ukraine. The resources are going to go to our own people. Yeah, precisely. I received a message from a reporter in Russia, and he's saying that also in Russia, all the TV programs have been nonstop talking about Russia and Lula. In a good way. Have they, have they discussed it at this, on this, like, level or intensity nonstop coverage? And he says, you know, that people are discussing Lula statements about, well, about considering refusing to supply weapons and the abandoned the abandonment of the dollar as important steps. And then also he said that, you know, they're having discussions about how the US might now try to overthrow Lula, because just based on these, like, couple of remarks that he made over the weekend in Beijing. So it's obvious that it's really shaking things up. Yeah, it's very exciting. I mean, it's not, it's not going to be easy and it could get pretty volatile. But what's unfolding under Brazil's leadership, Lula, specifically his articulation, it's very, it gives me a little bit of hope that, you know, the globe's going to be somewhat stable and not just blow up in our faces, which by some days might, when I'm super cynical, feel like that's, that's what the US would prefer versus embracing multilateralism is just really end it all. It's so, it's so tenuous, you know. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted to mention was that while in Caracas, he met Sergey Lavrov met with two other countries, which are, he met with the Bolivian foreign minister who was on a trip to Caracas. That's Rogelio Maite, and he met with the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonzales, who is the Salak pro tempore president. And so, that was significant because I think when people heard about this tour, this Latin America diplomatic tour by Lavrov that they just wondered why Bolivia wasn't included on this because of course, Bolivia is not the most important economy, you know, in the global south, let's be honest. But it is a very, I think it's a very important country in terms of, you know, a country that Russia could really grow its relationship with at this time. And so, it was very good that they were able to meet. And then in the meeting with the St. Vincent. Yeah, that's huge with Salak. He similarly rejected, you know, coercive measures against Russia. And you know, this is at a time when CARECOM has largely, the different countries of the Caribbean have largely been condemning Russia for its special military operation. But it seems like that's not Ralph's position. And I suspect that, you know, I suspect that some of the other governments are going to start kind of backing down from if they were ever supportive of Ukraine because they're just seeing the way in which this conflict does not benefit them one way or the other. And that, you know, they don't want to get sucked into it in any way. Hopefully they realize that, you know, the U.S. increasingly militarizing our region puts everyone in danger and is something that needs to be rejected across the board. But so those are two, you know, so that just means that so far on this trip Lavrov is meeting with at least six, six countries. Yeah. Again, shows, you know, and these are six very important countries. I would say very influential, including, you know, Venezuela, which even though it's a country of 30 million people took, has taken such a huge leadership role in the region at a time when it was, you know, heavily under attack and subject to a large number of unilateral coercive measures, none of which have been lifted today. But despite that, they have been kind of leading the way, you know, against sanctions against U.S. hegemony. And so so it's a huge that great Bolivarian vision of what the America should be. We talked about this last week with Carlos Rowan about the Monroeism vision for the Americas coming from the from the north and the Bolivarian vision for the Americas coming from from the south. And it's it's I mean, it's really clear that that's playing out today that that that clash and the Bolivarianism is really developing in throughout the south and moving, moving up, moving north. It's really it's very, it's very exciting to see that. I think it's fascinating. And I'm really glad you shared with us that that Venezuela facilitated Lavrov meeting with the Bolivian foreign minister and with Ralph Gonzalez from, you know, the president of Salah. Well, that's what Venezuela has been eating ground for, for, for socialists, for anti-imperialists. You know, during the Bolsonaro years, Brazil is a very large country that should be facilitating all sorts of, you know, social movement encounters and things like that. But in fact, they were forced to move other places. And so one of those places was Caracas, where the the Sao Paulo forum has has met on many occasions, as well as other social movement gatherings and things like that. So, you know, Venezuela is a country that like, like Brazil, under Lula's government is very friendly with, you know, other countries of the global south, other emergent economies and has welcomed a number of world leaders to meet with President Nicolas Maduro and Caracas. And I mean, he even met the president of FIFA, you know, all sorts of celebrities have come to meet Venezuela. And you know, just as well as anyone that it's actually not very easy to travel to Venezuela. It hasn't been in recent years. If you're a citizen of a lot of countries like the US, you have to be US. It can be intentionally difficult for US citizens to go. Yeah. And I think there's other considerations that, that someone might, you know, they, they might look at the fact that they could be subject to secondary sanctions. They'd fly their aircraft if it's some sort of a business person or whatever it is. But despite that, we've seen, you know, the kind of relaunching or restoration of diplomatic relations with so many different countries. And, and Venezuela now that even before, even before the US decided to cancel Guaido when he was still pretending to be the interim president, you know, these, these diplomatic relations were already being restored. And that was what the US, their whole claim was that, that a large part of the world, which was like, you know, 50 countries didn't recognize President Nicolas Maduro, this government, but they recognize this other guy. And, you know, that just all fell apart. And so the Lima group fell apart. And now it's just, you know, it's, it's really obvious that the whole thing was, was a big pyramid scheme. But unfortunately, a lot of people fell for it at the time. Nevertheless, it's an extremely important step for Venezuela and Brazil to be restoring their relations on all levels. They say that, you know, they want to as quickly as possible restore all these different things. I think they've already exchanged their ambassadors. Yeah, I believe so. And recently, maybe a month ago, so, so I'm Marine, of course, Lula's advisor took, you know, sort of a secret trip to, I mean, not so secretive because they posted the photos, but it wasn't like an agenda that was, that was publicized in advance to go meet with Maduro. And so that, again, is another indication as to what Brazil's intentions are right now internationally. This is not just about, you know, I think during the campaign and the debates, Lula made it seem as if it was very important for Brazil to be friends with its neighbors because of the issues of immigration and the climate and the Amazon. It's very clear now that it's much deeper than that. They actually have a shared vision for, you know, regional integration. They don't want countries to be excluded. They have the same, you know, political aspirations, let's say. And I think that this is a government in Brazil, which on a whole has a lot of respect for the Bolivarian Revolution and this current government in Venezuela. So I believe that that, you know, we're not going to see any slandering of the Venezuelan government. Obviously, they're very much in favor of Cuba. Lula has demanded the lifting of the blockade. And I would also suspect just based on the silence around Nicaragua, of course, I'm totally against the silence. My next question. I'm totally against, you know, backing down from these issues and leaving them up to everyone's each, for each to have their own interpretation. But they haven't joined on this, you know, joined in this campaign of slandering Nicaragua, which, you know, has included, you know, the president of Colombia, of Chile, you know, several people in the Argentine government. And to some extent, you know, Mexico shares those same positions, but hasn't really, you know, from what I can see hasn't really gotten too deep into it. But I think, you know, people, there's some people in Brazil from the left that would probably share those same sort of Gabrielle Borch positions. But despite that, they officially, the foreign, the foreign affairs ministry has not actually put anything out that has, that has in any way condemned Nicaragua called on Nicaragua to do anything. And, and I read those every day, right? So I think that they're just saying they know it's a, well, or the thing is, is that, you know, these, these statements are, they're not meaningless, but there are just things that are more meaningful. And so one of those things is that Brazil's, you know, Brazil itself and its banks can, can offer financing to Nicaragua. And I guess, just the way in which the social movement leader I mentioned earlier had said that Brazil should be providing some, you know, construction help with some of the projects that, that Nicaragua is in need of right now. I think we're going to find out sooner or later what sort of relations these countries are going to have Brazil, Brazil and Nicaragua. And I suspect that they're going to treat Nicaragua just like any other country. They're not going to chastise them or withhold, you know, that sort of support because of some claims that are being made in the media in the most slanderous campaign that I think we've seen on any country in our region. I think that they do want to have a good relations. That's something I'm, you know, following really closely trying to see what's going on. But I spoke to another, you know, social movement. The one I, the one I interviewed recently was an urban housing movement, but I've also spoken to rural movements and their positions, which are very large, by the way, in, in Brazil, because Brazil is a very large country. So we are talking about this represents a lot of, of organized people. And their position is that, you know, as far as Brazil is concerned, when there is a government that has socialist orientation and, you know, it's elected in a popular vote with popular support from the working class people, that if there are any issues that the people of that country need to solve with themselves, and there's no, there's no reason at all for the Brazilian government to get involved in such an issue, the way in which all these other countries of Europe and the US and Canada are trying to suck them into to this whole campaign based on the pretext of, you know, fake human rights violations, and so called political persecution. It is a very slippery slope if they were to join that, because if they're going to join that, they might as well also join, you know, in the campaigns that are against the, the mass government, because they're the same claims about human rights violations and political persecution there. I think, I mean, if you look at, if you look at the whole picture, and the way in which Brazil has so far in these first 100 days, interacted with Venezuela, with restoring all relations with Venezuela, with that meeting with Maduro, the way in which they haven't joined the anti-Nicaragua campaign, the way in which they're having, you know, good relations with Iran, China and Russia. I mean, I think it's very difficult to make the argument that this government of Brazil is aligned with the US, the Democratic Party. It's moving on. It's embracing, it's embracing what has been emerging for a couple decades, but I mean, it's really, I would say, like the almost, but I would also say Mexico has been a visionary voice for Latin America and the Caribbean as well, but really Lula is pretty much picking up that baton and saying, and of course has, you know, has the economic might, the population size and the, and the land mass size to really just take the hemisphere forward in engaging a multipolar world. I mean, not even forward, he's just like embraced it. It's like, this is, this is the world today and this is our role and this is what's best for our people. And here we go. And peace being the most important thing for everyone on the planet really, in order to develop domestically and internationally, the peace, his voice on peace is really so important. It's so large and so important that it's like it gives me hope. I mean, it really does. So what else should we talk about, Camilla? I've had you engaged in conversation for almost an hour now. I hope you haven't kept you from from, from other projects, but is there anything that we've, that we've not touched on regarding Brazil and Lula's vision? The invitation that was extended to Lula via Surya Lavrov was, I think to attend the economic forum in St. Petersburg. So we'll have to see when the date is for that. So it looks like there could potentially be an actual date for the visit. But I think that'll be really interesting. It'll be interesting to see whether, in fact, Lula will accept Zelensky's, you know, invitation to visit Ukraine because he does say, Lula does say that he wants to be a mediator and bring all these neutral actors together. So I think if he wants to prove that, and I think he does, he'll have to go take the visit. Sounds like as a visit, he's not dying to take, but he'll have to do so to earn their trust. But it sounds like he's losing the trust of a lot of people over in Europe. Well, more reason for him to go to St. Petersburg. Just keep building that multi-lateral, multi-polar world. Yeah, so there was this like, there was this very aggressive news anchor in Brazil who was interviewing Celso Amorim, Lula's chief advisor, and he said, why on the way back from, I'm speaking slowly because I like, I say every, I think everything in Portuguese and I'm just translating. Why on the way back from Beijing did he not go to, so Lula went to the United Arab Emirates. And it was like one, one and a half day trip and signed like 15 agreements. I'm sure it was a very important trip. It's just that I was covering so many things I wasn't able to see the details. But the guy was basically interrogating Celso Amorim saying, why didn't he, instead of doing this app, because it was considered an add-on, an extra trip. It's not like he let Brazil to go to Dubai. It was just something that he was able to do in addition to this big China trip. And he said, why didn't he go from Beijing to Ukraine? He said, why wouldn't he just have like a stop off there? So this is kind of what they're dealing with right now. It's just being interrogated on their position saying that it's not neutral. I mean, that's the headline is that they're not neutral and that they're being courted by the US's enemies. But I think for the global south, it's still considered neutral. And I think it's winning this government a lot of support within the country from people who want to see the global south taking a stand for itself and wanting to see an end to the conflict. And what more can we do? We're all a part of the conflict because we're all on Earth and we're all going to be subject to the same nuclear holocaust or whatever. And Lula is just trying to help find a solution. No, it's really, it's just such a huge and important voice. And it's very, very, you know, like I said a couple of times, it's for me personally, it's very encouraging. It's like, oh my gosh, there's somebody, you know, of a sizable influence with sizable global influence, you know, saying, you know, we need peace, you know, and we're not going to help escalate anything in Ukraine. I just, it's, it's a voice of reason. And it's a voice of hope for all of us that there's some opportunity here. So, so we'll just keep watching Brazil and we'll have you come back and keep us updated as things continue to unfold. I'd love to have you come back and keep us posted. Especially if he, especially if Lula goes to St. Petersburg, that'll be a fascinating event to cover. Yeah, it will be. And so I guess we'll have an eye out for the rest of this week to see what the turnout is in terms of these important meetings in Nicaragua and Cuba. Russia is such an important ally to Cuba and Cuba continues to be suffocated under a more than 60 year long blockade and sanctions, which are illegal and which have been condemned by the whole world over with the exception of the US and Israel. And so every year at the at the UN General Assembly. And so with all of the, you know, issues with fuel shortages and needing to import things, I think, you know, hopefully they can look for some solutions. A lot of, you know, Cuba has been impacted by climate change. And of course, COVID and everything else. And during COVID, the US went even further to impose additional sanctions and also made it impossible and blocked really important medical supplies and equipment from the island. And so hopefully, you know, Russia can really step up there and find a way to provide additional support because, you know, this region might be in barely strong solidarity. We saw, you know, we've seen some shipments, you know, to Cuba during crucial times. For example, when there was an explosion at the and fire at the refinery, Bolivia was one of the the governments that sent donations to Cuba. And we've seen this a couple times over, but at the end of the day, it's going to take a little bit more than that. So for that reason, it's very important to see what comes out of this trip lab, route trip to Cuba. Yeah, well, for the hemisphere, especially now when considering, you know, what Venezuela helped facilitate when additional meetings. So like you said, I think it's six countries. I mean, formally for Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but now six and perhaps even, even more. So yeah, it's a, it's a new world that's emerging where I would argue has emerged and, you know, the United States is trying to put the genie back in the bottle and I don't think it's possible without a mushroom cloud going up. And so let's hope that doesn't happen. So thank you, Camilla. Always a pleasure to work with you and talk with you. I always learn so much and I so value your experience and your observations from the ground. So I hope you come back and we can follow, you know, this relationship with Brazil and Russia and continue to follow, you know, Lula's presidency and its significance for the Americas and the rest of the world. Yeah, thanks for the chat, Terry. I think for myself as a correspondent, as a reporter, as an editor, and at Custodian News, it's very important that our coverage is rooted in the facts because it's so easy to get swept away by the headlines of all the mainstream media and to actually, you know, be online on social media, watching, you know, the feed. You just see a lot of rumors. You see a lot of things based on prejudices, based on, you know, wrong information. You don't see links. You don't see anything that's concretely, you know, tied back to primary sources. And all of the reporting I do, if you look at what is on my feed and on the feed of Custodian News, it's almost always just direct translations of the statements played by Lula and others. I simply just share what the Russian foreign ministry has said or, you know, other state outlets provide great English translation to and I think we take direct, we took direct statements from the State Department of the U.S., from the White House, and other U.S. officials as well with absolutely no desire to distort any of this information. We think that people are, you know, have the ability to decide for themselves and see things for how they are, but they need to be able to have access to this primary information and base their understandings of what's going on in the world on these things. I find it very difficult to cite things like Reuters articles or AP articles or, you know, the BBC or CBC, because simply, you know, they're filtering their information in a very different way. They are editorializing things and they're not always including, you know, the location of where they got this information from. When I hear that a minister of Lula has made some statement or done something controversial, I have to go back myself and listen to it myself, translate it myself, and not just regurgitate things without verifying them. And I think that's extremely important. Diplomats obviously have to do that. Governments have to do that because if not, we would be, you know, starting wars every day. But I think as journalists, we have a little bit of a responsibility to our audience to do that as well. So that's something I try to provide. We're not providing in-depth analysis of things. We've not provided, you know, these big investigations or anything like that. But we do provide, I think the resources that we're able to find and, you know, basic translations so that people can actually see what the positions are of these governments, also what the positions are of, you know, social movements. It's unfiltered. It's a really good question. It is unfiltered. Yeah. From the primary sources and it's very good. And for the audience, in the program notes, I've included links for Camilla for her social media handles and also for Casatune News. So you can find both in the, that's all in the program notes, how to find you. Thanks for that. Okay, everyone. I just want to remind you, you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. We're a popular resistance broadcast. We broadcast on YouTube live every Thursday, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. You can find us on the YouTube channels for the ConvoCouch, Code Pink, popular resistance, post broadcasts. Recordings can be found on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your broadcast. So thank you again, Camilla. And we'll see and talk to all of you next week.