Earlier this year, Brazil flipped the world upside down.
During a state visit to China, Brazilian officials presented a new world map, produced by its institute for geography and statistics. In it, the south points upward, and Brazil is at the center.
The map symbolizes Brazil’s ambition to be a leader in a world rooted in cooperation, particularly between nations in the Global South that are still often pushed to the sidelines in global decision-making.
Why We Wrote This
As President Trump doles out tariffs on friends and foes and moves away from global climate pacts, Brazil’s President Lula is ready to step into the spotlight with his vision for international cooperation.
It’s not a new dream for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who popularly goes by Lula. He spent his first two terms in office pushing for South-South cooperation, and co-founded a bloc exclusively for emerging economies, known as BRICS. But today, with the United States increasingly looking inward and expressing disdain for international institutions under President Donald Trump, Lula is trying to seize the moment to champion his vision for global leadership.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has slapped tariffs on friends and foes, withdrawn the U.S. from efforts to cooperate on health and climate initiatives, threatened sovereign nations, and unilaterally waded into wars. His approach has essentially torn up the global governance playbook that the U.S. helped write after World War II.
The response of Lula, who returned to office for a third term in January 2023, has been to double down on building bridges. He has visited nearly a dozen countries in the first half of 2025 alone, advancing Brazil’s trade interests in places like Japan, Vietnam, and France. And he’s calling for global cooperation to tackle universal challenges, like the climate crisis.
“The solution to the crisis of multilateralism is not to abandon it, but to improve it,” Lula said in May at a China-Latin America forum in Beijing. Brazil has long campaigned for a reform to international institutions like the United Nations Security Council or the World Trade Organization, arguing they should be more representative of nations outside of the West.
But its global approach also involves trying to stay out of conflicts and remain on good terms with all partners – a take on “neutrality” that critics say could undercut Lula’s ambitions.
“Brazil’s posture of reaffirming the need to reform the global governance system … could be strengthened by Trump’s lack of interest in these changes,” says Guilherme Casarões, professor of international relations at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation university. “Brazil can position itself as an increasingly relevant voice.”
Put me in, coach?
Cooperation between nations is seen by the Lula government “as the best vehicle for Brazil to project its influence,” says Maiara Folly, executive director of Plataforma CIPÓ, a Brazilian think tank focused on governance, climate, and peace-building.
And it’s primed to put this into action as it plays host to a series of key global summits. Over the weekend, Brazil hosted the BRICS+ summit, bringing together over 20 developing countries. There was the G20 gathering in Rio de Janeiro last year – which was a diplomatic success insofar as the ideologically disparate members signed a joint declaration. And in November, Brazil will host the COP30 U.N. climate conference on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, in Belém.
The climate agenda is a sphere in which Brazil is already influential. It has made clear the absence of the U.S. won’t hinder efforts to implement the Paris Agreement in areas like emissions reduction and the energy transition. The Trump government is expected to skip the summit after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and failing to attend preliminary talks in Bonn, Germany.
“The United States’ international retreat leaves a vacuum,” says Ms. Folly. “It’s an opportunity for Brazil, and for other big emerging economies like China and India, to take on greater leadership in the climate agenda.”
The Lula government is also spearheading efforts within the South American trade bloc Mercosur to complete a long-delayed trade agreement with the European Union. If it is successful, it will be “a powerful response to American protectionism,” says Maurício Santoro, a political scientist and collaborator at the Brazilian navy’s Center for Political-Strategic Studies.
A friend to all vs. anti-American
But, in an increasingly divided world, there are limits to what Brazil can do. The country traditionally pursues “active nonalignment” – a pragmatic strategy that reflects the strong economic ties it has built with both China and the United States as its top trading partners, and fosters its desire to act as a neutral mediator in conflict resolution.
But Lula’s refusal to take sides in recent conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and his prioritization of South-South ties has elicited criticism from Western partners, who question whether Brazil is anti-American.
“Brazil sees itself as a swing state, a pivot power that can bring a level of influence to other countries that don’t want to take sides,” says Bruna Santos, director of the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank.
“But it’s becoming more difficult for Brazil to play that role,” she says, because of growing geopolitical tensions, notably between the U.S. and China.
The BRICS+ summit, which kicked off in Rio on July 6, is a test for Brazil’s capacity to remain neutral and simultaneously steer the international agenda.
Founded as a club of emerging economies in the mid-2000s, the BRICS hoped to garner more of a say in a global order dominated by Western powers. But, after it expanded in recent years to include countries including Iran and Indonesia, some now see the group as having taken on a distinctly anti-West, or at least pro-China, stance.
On July 6, President Trump threatened tariffs for “any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS,” even after the group issued a final declaration that avoided direct criticism of the U.S.
This highlights the challenges Brazil is up against as it tries to maintain its balancing act and steer conversations around the climate agenda, the reform of international institutions, and the fight against hunger and poverty.
“These are important issues in which Brazil believes it can play a relevant role and build consensus,” says Dr. Casarões.
But ultimately, he says, it also shows that Brazilian diplomacy is limited, particularly at a moment when global consensus is scarce.
