Spanish
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, plans to speak this Monday via videoconference with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in what will be the first direct contact between them after a brief meeting at the United Nations.
Official sources confirmed to EFE that, in the virtual meeting, Lula will be accompanied by the vice president and Minister of Commerce and Industry, Geraldo Alckmin, and the heads of Foreign Relations, Mauro Vieira, and of Finance, Fernando Haddad.
The intention of Brazil in this first conversation between Lula and Trump, according to what Foreign Minister Vieira has anticipated, is to discuss the 50% tariffs that the United States has been applying since last August to a large part of Brazilian products.
That measure was adopted by Trump in retaliation for the trial in which the Brazilian Supreme Court sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro, leader of the far-right and one of the main allies of the Republican leader in Latin America, to 27 years in prison.
Last week, in a hearing in a commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Vieira had said that this first conversation between Lula and Trump was being prepared and anticipated that the Brazilian president intended to discuss tariff issues, but not the "sovereignty" of Brazil and its Judiciary.
The meeting began to be prepared after Lula and Trump crossed paths in the corridors of the UN General Assembly and, according to the American leader himself, a "chemistry" arose between them.
According to Vieira, Lula would only be willing to negotiate tariffs, arguing that over the last 15 years the bilateral trade relationship has been largely favorable to the United States.
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"The expressly political reasons related to judicial processes in the Supreme Court are not relevant in a negotiation between sovereign states," declared the foreign minister.
