NEW WHITE HOUSE PRIORITIES
Brazilian officials recognized that their agenda for the G20, focused on sustainable development, taxing the super-rich and fighting poverty and hunger could soon lose steam when Trump starts dictating new global priorities from the White House.
Brazil’s push for a reform of global governance, including multilateral financial institutions, may also hit roadblocks with Trump, Brazilian officials said.
Biden, who visited the Amazon rainforest on his way to Rio, is set to announce a pledge to replenish the World Bank’s International Development Association fund aimed at the world’s poorest countries, and launch a bilateral clean energy partnership with Brazil, a senior US official told reporters.
Xi is expected to tout China’s Belt & Road initiative as it exerts its economic ascendancy. Brazil has so far declined to join the global infrastructure initiative, but hopes are high for other industrial partnerships when Xi wraps up his stay in the country with a state visit in Brasilia on Wednesday.
Brazil’s decision not to join was “a big blow to relations”, said Li Xing, professor at the Guangdong Institute of International Strategies, affiliated with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “China was very disappointed,” he said.
Trade talks around the G20 will be stoked by concerns of an escalation in the US-China trade war, as Trump plans to slap tariffs on imports from China and other nations.
Trump’s tax-cutting verve will add to headwinds for Brazil’s efforts to discuss taxation of the super-rich, an issue dear to Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who put it on the G20 agenda.
Trump’s newest ally in Latin America, libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, has already drawn a red line on the issue. Argentina’s negotiators refused to approve mention of the issue in the summit’s joint communique, diplomats said.
