Valdai Club

Brazil lacks a popular national project capable of sealing a strategic pact between sectors of the elite interested in the country’s reindustrialisation and popular sectors, mediated by a state capable of leading a sovereign development project, Marco Fernandes writes. Still, it has a chance to resume a ‘proud and active’ foreign policy.

On April 18-24, 1955, Bandung, Indonesia, hosted the Asia-Africa Conference that pioneered the Global South’s general approaches to international politics and economics and to the fight against colonialism and neo-colonialism.

In his third term in office, President Lula da Silva is trying to regain the global prominence of Brazilian foreign policy that characterised his previous terms (2003-2010) and those of President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). However, a lot has changed on the domestic and international scenes since 2016, posing complex challenges for Brazil’s capacity to resume its leading geopolitical role. In domestic politics, Lula depends on a broad front of parties, some centre-right, with interests strongly linked to Western powers.

An “alternative” monetary fund to the IMF has been created, but, ironically, it needs the IMF’s blessing to be used. It was created in a different context than today’s, in which we had yet to experience such a sharpening of the contradictions between the imperialist powers and the global majority. But history demands a change, writes Marco Fernandes, editor at Wenhua Zongheng International.