Lula celebrates China–US agreement: Long in coming
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday (May 13) praised the announcement of a deal to reduce China–US trade tariffs following talks between representatives of the two countries two days ago in Switzerland.
“The agreement between the US and China in Geneva is a demonstration, pure and simple, that everything would be easier if the US had talked to China before unilaterally announcing the taxes. It would have been much easier, much simpler, and much less painful for the world. It’s a demonstration that it takes time, but it doesn’t fail. Wisdom always brings us to the negotiating table,” he said during a press conference in Beijing, where he has been on an official visit in recent days.
He also defended the return of the World Trade Organization as the main mechanism for discussing trade tariffs.
Both countries have announced they will reduce extra reciprocal tariffs imposed last month. On the US side, tariffs on Chinese products will fall from 145 to 30 percent. On the opposite side, the Chinese will reduce the extra tariffs against the US from 125 to 10 percent. Negotiations between the world’s two biggest economic powers will continue, but they have already brought immediate relief to the world economy.
A new world order
President Lula once again defended the revitalization of the global governance system, arguing there is no room for unilateral action, citing the challenge of containing global warming and its catastrophic consequences for human life on the planet.
“If the UN [United Nations] isn’t strong, the climate issue will be dealt with in a secondary way. There’s no point in making decisions at COPs [UN climate conferences] if you don’t have a global governance body to enforce them. When you make decisions and nothing happens, it gets tiring. One day you get discouraged,” he stated.
In his view, the visit to China strengthened the vision shared with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, about the importance of multilateralism in coordinating global issues.
“China deserves to be looked at with more affection and without prejudice. China is the economic and technological novelty of the 21st century. The BRICS is another extraordinary novelty of this century,” he said, before mentioning the BRICS Summit, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in July.
“We want to make important decisions to see if we can change the axis of the world’s geopolitics,” he said.
