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"The global situation that Lula will encounter, in a few months' time, will be much more complex than today."
The analysis is by economist Otaviano Canuto, who teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, in the capital of the United States, and who was vice-president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), between 2007 and 2009, as well as director of the World Bank between the 2000s and 2010s.
This is because, in addition to possible "automatic" international alignments, there is a consensus that geopolitics will undergo profound changes next year.
One is the impact of the United States legislative elections, the so-called midterms, on the dynamics of Republican President Donald Trump's government.
The resumption of control of the American Congress by the Democratic Party, in a historic defeat for Trump, will generate more friction for the American president until the end of his term, in 2029.
Others are the presidential elections in France, between April and May 2027, and in Argentina, in October.
This is what Vinícius Mariano de Carvalho, professor at the Department of War Studies at King's College, London, United Kingdom, calls "surrealpolitik", a twist on the concept of realpolitik, used by experts in international relations to describe agreements produced based on the real interests of the actors involved.
For Carvalho, Lula "can forget any idea of having logical relations with other countries".
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“Today’s geopolitical pattern is one of lack of coherence and regulation,” he says. In other words, it is less realistic and more surrealist, in the terms of French writer André Breton (1896-1966).
"In fact," continues Carvalho, "an ally today can literally be tomorrow's rival — and that tomorrow is not so subjective. I'm talking about next year."
They, as well as other experts interviewed by BBC News Brasil, believe that Lula will have three major immediate challenges on his foreign policy agenda:
Lula will, above all, have to face a "Donroe doctrine" that is probably more warlike ahead, analysts say.
The American president has already said that the Brazilian elections were rigged, although he has not presented proof. In parallel, he allowed the entry of Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and gave his approval to remain in the country, after the senator went to Florida shortly after his defeat in the October elections.
"If Trump used some instruments of coercion with political transactional objectives, such as import tariffs, he will also use them to access rare earths, critical minerals and to try to restrict Chinese investments in Brazil's infrastructure", says Canuto, who is also a member of the Policy Center for the New South, a think tank based in Morocco focused on the insertion of the African continent in the narratives of the Global South.
It is already certain, moreover, that Lula will lose what many see as his greatest ally in Europe today: the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who will leave office in May.
On the other hand, it will sustain Brazil's relations with regional powers, such as India, in Asia, and Mexico, in Latin America, for a longer period of time, as well as with Vladimir Putin's (at war) Russia.
"Lula's challenge is to react to Trump", summarizes the economist.
"The big point is: in the face of the energy and technological transition, how to make the decision as to whether Brazil will trade its critical minerals and rare earths as an export commodity or based on their added value, that is, for bargaining power? That is the debate."
Between Trump and the next US president
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There is a consensus among experts that the relationship with the United States will play a key role in the geopolitical course from now on.
Trump, who returned to power in January last year, has had a strong impact on Brazilian domestic politics since then: he raised import tariffs (currently 35%) on national products, classified the two largest criminal factions in Brazil — the Red Command (CV) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) — as "terrorists", opening the possibility of local military incursions, and distributed dubious speeches about Lula — saying that he "liked him", in September 2025, to calling him "volatile" and declaring that she "couldn't care less about him" two months later.
In the same period, the American president received Flávio Bolsonaro in Washington, in May, and granted a permanent visa to Eduardo Bolsonaro, in addition to welcoming the senator, weeks ago.
In parallel to this, Trump tried to negotiate commercial arrangements with members of the Lula government. In July, the American newspaper The Washington Post published a report with information that the White House tried to send emissaries to Brazil, with the plan to raise doubts about the integrity of electronic voting machines in the electoral process.
In any case, half of Lula's next term will go through Trump's government — which, in theory, will last until 2029.
"Lula will have a very difficult relationship with the USA, in fact, because of Marco Rubio", analyzes Feliciano de Sá Guimarães, director of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (Cebri), citing the US Secretary of State's conflicting stance with the Brazilian government and one of those tipped to run in the American presidential election in 2028.
In one of the most aggressive statements by an American official about the Brazilian government, Rubio said in July that Lula "put his ego above" the possibility of a trade agreement with the country. Two weeks ago, he had to deny the information that the White House helped Flávio leave Brazil with the help of the government of Javier Milei, from Argentina.
He embarked for Florida on a private jet that departed from Puerto Iguazú, on the Argentine border, and made a stop in Ecuador.
"I see him putting pressure on Brazil in several instances, while Trump would be more transactional, waiting for tariff negotiations and on other issues where he understands that we could give in", continues Sá Guimarães, who is the author of Theory of International Relations (Contexto, 2021).
In Sá Guimarães' assessment, Lula will need to convince the White House that Brazil is not a rival of the United States — an idea that, he says, has been sustained in Washington among successive American governments since at least the second term of Democrat Barack Obama (2013-2017).
"It's a misreading of them, because we are not enemies. It will be more of a convincing job. This needs to be the top priority, because we cannot get in the sights of the United States under any circumstances. Just look at what happened to the Venezuelans and the Iranians," he says.
Sá Guimarães' analysis is based on a debate that gained new contours with Trump's return: about whether Washington's relationship with Brasília is a state policy and, therefore, independent of the current presidents, or whether it is part of the Trumpist agenda for Latin America, marked by the attempt at political and economic domination.
"A lot of people have said that when Trump leaves things will change. I think it's an innocent reading", argues the director of Cebri.
"After all these obstacles, tariffs, factions, etc., it is impossible to imagine that a future Democratic government would remove them without asking for anything in return. There would be, at most, greater room for negotiation. To say otherwise is to ignore the functioning of a superpower", he argues.
There are, however, analyzes that point to more disparate positions. Lucas Leite, coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in International Relations at the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation (Faap), in São Paulo, for example, predicts that Lula will maintain his agenda of strengthening multilateralism and national sovereignty even in a region integrated into the Shield of the Americas, the military project launched in March that involves Trump's allies in Latin America, such as Colombia and Ecuador.
"This alliance isolated Brazil, but, on the other hand, the Southern Cone countries [Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay] have a dependent relationship with Brazil. Building these cross-cutting relationships would be difficult for Lula," says Leite.
These dilemmas will continue, in any case, until the end of 2028, when the United States will go to the polls to choose a new president. By law, Trump will not be able to be re-elected, although he has been strengthening movements around his campaign.
He has appeared a few times wearing a cap with the phrase "Trump 2028" and, last October, during a visit to Asia, he said he would "love" to run in the election. In parallel, two names from his cabinet are fighting for the Republican Party's nomination: the vice president, J. D. Vance, and Marco Rubio.
On the Democratic side, the options abound: from the governor of California, Gavin Newson, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from New York who has attracted the attention of younger people and is an ally of the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
In any case, after 2028, the next president will have two years of coordination with another American president — which will not nullify all current conflicts.
"By approaching the BRICS, Europe and China with its own agenda, Brazil showed Washington that it intends to follow an agenda of national sovereignty. The United States views this with suspicion, beyond the current ruler, and will seek more direct interventions or seek to guarantee their interests through other means", says Leite.
The 'Janus challenge'
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The intensification of competition between China and the USA — in technology, trade and territorial control, among others — has been called by observers the "Thucydides trap". Xi Jinping, president of China, himself mentioned this idea during the dinner he had with Trump, in New York, a few days ago.
The concept uses an account by the Athenian historian Thucydides (460 BC – 400) about the Peloponnesian War, more than 2,500 years ago, between Athens and Sparta, to describe the risk of a war happening when an emerging power breaks out, threatening to take the place of an already established one.
But, for Feliciano de Sá Guimarães, Brazil's real dilemma has another name. "It's the 'Janus challenge'", he calls it, in reference to the Roman god with two faces, one forward and one back.
"We are trapped in this trap: every time the Americans use coercive instruments against Brazil, the Brazilian government picks up the phone, calls Xi Jinping and extracts some kind of benefit from him — a new agreement, an investment, a treaty, etc. Then, the United States is encouraged to use more coercive instruments to try to keep Brazil in its sphere of control, and the cycle perpetuates itself," he explains.
"To get out of this, this next government will have to create a trilateral negotiation strategy. It's the only way to not be captured by the US-China rivalry."
Otaviano Canuto summarizes all of this in the discussion that he saw taking place in conversations organized by different American institutions in the 2000s. "At that time, I started to be asked to talk about China's influence in Latin America. As I was director of the World Bank, they thought I was the ideal person to point out some paths. And there was always a message from Democrats and Republicans like this: 'Don't take Chinese money. You will get into debt and will have to deliver more things than you expected when the time comes to negotiate. the debt. You will be left in their hands'", he says.
"Brazil's response, among the various governments — from Fernando Henrique Cardoso to Bolsonaro — was the same: 'Okay, but what do you propose to put in its place? Do you have something to offer'?"
Last year, China accounted for 28.7% of Brazilian exports, adding around US$100 billion in gross revenue to Brazilian companies. It was, by far, the main destination for the country's products on the global market, ahead of the USA (10.8% share) and Argentina (5.8%), according to the Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC).
Furthermore, Brazil was the country where China invested the most in the world in 2025: a total of US$6.1 billion, according to the annual report of the Brazil-China Business Council. A significant increase of 45% compared to the previous year.
On the other hand, although it still remains Brazil's biggest investor, the US invested less money in Brazilian businesses last year: US$8.5 billion, according to the Central Bank. In 2024, this volume had been US$12 billion.
"I highly doubt that any government will be able to remove China from this position as the main trading partner", explains Lucas Leite, from Faap.
It is the same reading as Vinícius Mariano de Carvalho, from King's College, adding Brazil's role in the BRICS, the group originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and which recently included Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Indonesia.
"The bloc is an important economic reality for the world. Lula, obviously, will not change the country's course within it."
“But the discomfort in the US is already well-known,” continues Canuto. "The challenge will be to live with all of this without having to make a bilateral choice", he observes, citing the rivalry for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) devices.
"Today, the USA and China concentrate 70% of data centers specialized in AI in the world. It is a duopoly in the midst of multipolar chaos. As a result, both powers reinforce global frictions. The search for critical minerals, the issue of digital sovereignty, the regulation of platforms and the transformation of energy sources into energy assets will be parallel front lines of this competition", emphasizes the economist.
'Fractured' South America and distant Argentina
Also because of the United States, Lula will need to propose a new agenda for his South American neighbors, argue experts interviewed by BBC News Brasil.
"He will be faced with a fractured continent", observes Canuto, pointing out that, of the 12 countries on the continent, seven are currently governed by right-wing parties, compared to five by the left. This is why integration initiatives are paralyzed, including Mercosur itself, the region's main economic bloc.
"It will be necessary to rebuild some degree of South American coordination. Remaking this integration, with Mercosur, without depending on the ideological affinity of each country on the continent, will be a real challenge", continues the economist.
This is also because of the Shield of the Americas which, in practice, left Brazil isolated: made up of 14 countries, in addition to the USA itself, the project has some border nations in the agreement, such as Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia.
“This is, in fact, an anti-Brazil alliance,” says Sá Guimarães, from Cebri.
"For this reason, the Brazilian government will need to offer some gains to these countries, so that they realize that it is important to have a good relationship with us. It has to be a strategy to contain the actions of the Americans against Brazil on the continent", he continues.
The political scientist calls this stance "aggressive bilateralism": the production of individual agreements with each neighboring country, parallel to the blocs, emphasizing the additional advantages they would have in deepening their relations with Brazil without losing their ties with Washington.
For Kai Enno Lehmann, from IRI-USP, the issue is also a military one, because the PT member will live with the uncertainties about Trump's war plans in South America.
"We don't know if there will be a 'new Venezuela'. [After Lula's election] will Trump enter into a more direct confrontation with Brazil?", he asks.
"Our neighborhood is very unstable in an even more unstable global context. The big point will be to reposition Brazil in a way that the country does not fall victim to this instability. We will have to play defensively. Defend the country from chaos."
The challenge becomes even more difficult, analysts say, because Itamaraty will need to write a new agenda for Argentina.
This, which is Brazil's third largest trading partner, will also go to the polls next year.
On one side will be President Javier Milei, from the radical right party La Libertad Avanza, who leads the polls (44%), a very small margin for his virtual opponent, Alex Kicillof (39% of voting intentions), governor of the Province of Buenos Aires and former Minister of Finance in Cristina Kirchner's second government, from 2013 to 2025.
Throughout this year, Milei distanced himself from diplomacy from Brazil's Casa Rosada, especially after insulting Lula and Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), at the event that launched Flávio Bolsonaro's candidacy, in July.
Days later, he called his Brazilian counterpart a "thief" in an interview with the Argentine channel LN+. In recent days, the thesis that Milei helped Flávio travel to the USA through Puerto Iguazú airport has gained strength.
Lula, in turn, caused a stir in Buenos Aires, in September 2025, when he visited Kirchner in his apartment during a Mercosur summit. At the time, she was beginning to serve a six-year prison sentence, under house arrest, for having favored businesspeople close to her when she was president. The visit generated strong criticism in Argentina. During the campaign, the PT member also cited Milei as a negative example of an economic agenda.
However, a deeper analysis of the interests of the relationship between Milei and Brazil points to counterintuitive factors. Sá Guimarães believes, for example, that the Argentine president was actually rooting against Flávio Bolsonaro.
This is because, if the senator were to win the election in Brazil, all the benefits that Washington has given to Casa Rosada, such as loans or political support at decisive moments, would immediately migrate to Brazil.
"Milei could lose the privileged relationship she has with Trump, because, for the US, Brazil is much more important than Argentina."
In a more economic sense, Otaviano Canuto believes that the result of the Argentine election will be the guiding thread of Brazilian politics in relation to its most relevant neighbor.
"If Milei wins, Mercosur will become a looser bloc. It goes against Brazil's strategy of using it as a platform to negotiate agreements, as it was with the European Union. If the Peronist opposition wins, I hope for rapprochement with Brasília."
"The important thing", he continues, "is that this Argentina of 2027 will function as a double thermometer of Brazil's position on the global stage, because either this axis of alignment with Trump is consolidated as a standard in the Southern Cone or Mercosur is strengthened as an instrument of collective negotiation".
Credit, Wagner Meier via Getty Images
European dilemmas
If the complexities involving the United States, China, South America and Argentina were not enough, Lula will have to deal, in 2027, with a Europe on the boil.
In France, the presidential elections in April will define a replacement for Emmanuel Macron, who has governed the country since 2017. In recent years, he has become an important ally of Brazil on the continent, even though he has made it difficult to sign the EU agreement with Mercosur due to pressure from the French agricultural sector.
Voting intention polls show a wide advantage for Marine Le Pen, candidate of the Rassemblement National (RN), from the radical right, over the left candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon (France Insoumise): 36% against 19%.
All this amid a wave of protests that has shaken the country in recent weeks.
Spain and Italy, in turn, will have legislative elections that could change the direction of the offices of Pedro Sánchez and Giorgia Meloni, respectively.
The first has seen his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) compete vote for vote with the center-right European People's Party (EPP), on the one hand, and an increasingly forceful approach to Vox, from the radical right, in the polls. The crisis made Sánchez bring forward the legislative election to the end of this month.
Meloni, on the other hand, is dealing with a conflict in the coalition since a former general of the Italian Army, Roberto Vannacci, created a party more to the right than his Fratelli d'Italia: Futuro Nazionale, which already has 8% of voting intentions,
"The truth is that no one knows what Europe's direction will be. Not even me, who has been studying this for years", admits Lehmann, "even though we know that there will be a deepening of the continent's fragmentation".
"It's going to be bad for Brazil, which won't know who to interact with in the European Union. Who would be a reliable interlocutor? And who's to say that there won't be another war in Europe soon? It's a dilemma for anyone who wins the election here," he says.
For Otaviano Canuto, the European elections will be decisive, because they will serve as a test of how much the continent will be able to sustain itself as the third world hub, in order of relevance, after China and the USA.
"If Meloni remains in Italy and Germany and France follow their shifts to the right, Europe will become more fragmented internally and less willing to exercise some kind of bilateral protagonism. It will weaken Brasília's position in the polarity between the USA and China", analyzes the economist.
The PT member will still see a change of power in Germany, which will go to the polls in federal elections in 2029 to renew the Parliament (Bundestag). The election is particularly sensitive, considering the latest regional results.
A few weeks ago, the radical right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) had its first robust electoral victory in a German state, in the legislative elections in Saxony-Anhalt (43% of the vote). No group on this spectrum has gained a political majority in the country since the Second World War.
"It's even more uncertain there. Maybe this election will give clues about the future", concludes Lehmann.
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