Ganging up against Trump? Brazil’s Lula to talk to India, China on tariff
Just after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared the air on Trump's tariff, stating India was ready for the ramifications, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva followed suit, making it clear that he had no intention to ring the US President, at least for now. Interestingly, Lula also raised the stakes, stating that he will call India, China to discuss Trump tariffs with the BRICS group.
Neither was Brazil announcing reciprocal tariffs, nor is it giving up on cabinet-level talks. But Lula himself is in no rush to ring the White House, Reuters reported.
"The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won't hesitate to call him," Lula told Reuters, adding that his intuition, today, says he doesn't want to talk. “And I won't humiliate myself," the President said.
Lula added that he plans to call the leaders of India and China to discuss a joint BRICS response to tariffs on US imports imposed by Trump. “I'm going to try to discuss with them about how each one is doing in this situation, what the implications are for each country, so we can make a decision," he said, warning that it's important to remember that the BRICS have ten countries at the G20.
"What President Trump is doing is tacit — he wants to dismantle multilateralism, where agreements are made collectively within institutions, and replace it with unilateralism, where he negotiates one-on-one with other countries," Lula said.
Lula’s BRICS warning is likely to be a direct challenge to Trump, who seems to have targeted every nation in the group. Earlier, Trump had warned against the group, stating that he would “hit them very, very hard” and wouldn’t let anyone “play games with us”. Trump also made it clear that he was committed to preserving the dollar's global status as a reserve currency.
However, Brazil vowed to stand up to Trump then, doubling down on its commitment to the BRICS bloc. Lula had also rejected Trump’s tactics, saying the US president was elected “not to be emperor of the world”.
Meanwhile, India too is exploring ways to offset the impact of the tariff. Ajit Doval is currently in Russia and is expected to discuss tariffs with President Vladimir Putin’s team. Narendra Modi has also announced that he would visit China for the SEO summit, and the tariff topic is expected to dominate the gathering as well.
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