Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin yesterday for about 40 minutes, the Brazilian presidential palace said, adding that Putin shared information about his discussions with the US and ‘recent peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine’.
The leaders also discussed their co-operation in the BRICS group of emerging countries and ‘discussed the current international political and economic scenario’, according to the statement.
The conversation with Lula is the latest of a flurry of calls between Putin and foreign leaders in recent days ahead of the Russian president’s expected meeting with Trump next week.
Putin spoke to the leaders of China and India, both also part of the BRICS group of developing nations, and other presidents from Central Asia and Europe earlier to brief them on his contacts with the US about the war in Ukraine.
Lula has been in a public spat with Trump since the US imposed a 50 per cent tariff on the imports of Brazilian goods, which Trump linked to an alleged ‘witch hunt’ against his ally and Brazil’s former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. US imports of some Brazilian products, such as orange juice and aircraft, received a lower rate.
Lula told Reuters on Wednesday he planned to call the leaders of the BRICS countries, which also include South Africa, to discuss a joint response to Trump’s tariffs on US imports.
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