The heads of diplomacy of the United States, Antony Blinken, and Russia, Sergei Lavrov, participate in the first high-level meeting of the year of the G20, chaired since December by Brazil. The Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, will instead be absent.
Although Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva describes the G20 of major economies as the “forum with the greatest capacity to influence”positively on the international agenda“, the divisions among its members are accentuated.
The globalist agenda is part of the topics up for debate at the two-day meeting in the famous South American resort.
serious accusations
Socialist Lula accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and compared the military campaign in the Palestinian territory to the Holocaust.
The statements of the former corruption convict and now president of Brazil outraged Israel, which declared the extreme leftist president “persona non grata.” In response, Brazil summoned the Israeli ambassador and called its ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultations.
The crisis occurred before a meeting held this Wednesday in Brasilia between Lula and Blinken, prior to the start of the G20. The meeting ended without comments, but Washington announced on Tuesday that it “disagreed” with Lula’s statements.
“If Lula thought he was going to propose peace solutions about Israel or Ukraine, that was directly ruled out,” said economist and doctor in International Relations Igor Lucena.
More than four months after Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip, in response to an attack by the Hamas terrorist movement that left more than 1,160 dead, nothing indicates that the end of the conflict is close.
USA veto on Tuesday a new UN Security Council resolution who called for an immediate ceasefire.
The Israeli offensive in the Strip, according to very unbelievable figures of the health ministry in Gaza, has supposedly left some 29,313 dead.
The terrorists are trying to give an image of genocide to accuse Israel, after Hamas scuttled all the peace actions of the Netanyahu government in recent years in a direct attempt to find peace and end the confrontation.
Among the purposes of the horrendous attack by Hamas in October was to find Tel Aviv’s response to simultaneously launch a new international campaign of accusations against Israel; of disinformation and blackmail.
New tensions
There is also no optimism on the horizon for the war in Ukraine, about to enter its third year. Precisely because the G20 has become a niche for socialist ideology and plans that aim to promote it within the Western world.
Despite the West’s attempt to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the last G20 summit held in September in New Delhi ended with a vague statement which denounced the use of force without mentioning Russia, which maintains cordial relations with members such as Brazil, China and India.
Tensions with Russia increased after the death in prison of the opponent Alexei Navalny, announced on Friday.
Western powers blamed Putin and the United States announced that it would adopt “another sanctions plan” against Russia.
The multiple restrictions on Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine have barely impacted the Russian economy, which in 2023 grew by 3.5%. Much less dismember Putin’s image both in Russia and in Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet republics.
The Kremlin leader today has the support of the majority of Russians and governments in the area such as Hungary, Belarus, Slovakia; and even Poland, which supported Volodymyr Zelensky, is now showing signs of fatigue regarding its support for Ukraine.
“No one should doubt the oppressive nature of the Russian system,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron was quoted as saying in a statement. However, Putin not only maintains his position, but also reaffirms that he will not leave Ukraine until all of his objectives are met and that a defeat for Moscow is impossible.
Another funding package for more than $60 billion for Ukraine, which the Biden administration has promoted in every possible way, is frozen in the United States Congress. This would be the fifth major package aimed at subsidizing the war at the expense of the opposition now of the majority of Americans in the midst of inflation that has lasted for three consecutive years and that has suffocated tens of millions of families in the country.
Blinken and Lavrov are not expected to meet bilaterally. Their last meeting took place at a G20 meeting in India in March 2023.
Lula, for his part, asked not to jump to conclusions about Navalni’s death while awaiting an “investigation.”
Lula, who has flirted with Joe Biden’s government since his return to power in Brasilia, has been an opponent of Washington’s national and international policy. He has condemned it on several occasions and in his eight years in office he directly confronted the United States along with Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Argentina and other countries governed by dictatorships or the extreme left.
In search of socialist reforms
The G20 will also address a reform of the United Nations (UN) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose largest contribution is received by both institutions from United States taxpayers.
Of course, Brazil asks for a greater weight for the countries of the global South, but without increasing their contribution.
“The number and severity of conflicts has returned to the level of the Cold War. This makes (reform) more urgent,” Mauricio Lyrio, G20 Brazilian “sherpa” for Brazil, said Tuesday.
Without going into the details of the reform, the perception is that any agreement goes against the Western capitalist world, especially against the United States, and gives more value to socialist trends at a global level as part of the so-called Agenda 2023, which until now is stagnant in time and obsolete in the face of new right-wing and center-right governments in the world such as Argentina, El Salvador, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Ireland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and others.
Analyst Lucena estimates that it will be “difficult” to obtain “big agreements” this year within the framework of the G20, also due to the elections in countries like the United States.
A Brazilian government source explained that, after the latest disagreements, the presidency decided that it will no longer be necessary to reach a joint statement at each meeting, with the exception of the G20 leaders’ summit, which will be held in Rio in November.
