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 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil and the first Latin American chief of state to meet with US President Barack Obama will urge the American leader, this Saturday, March 14, to open talks with governments in Venezuela and Cuba and make aid and development the focus of his Latin America policy.
The Brazilian president would like the US to move away from what he sees as a heavy-handed approach to the region and focus on incentives to resolve economic and social problems. Relations between the US and much of Latin America were difficult under the recent Bush administration.
"What I want is for the United States to look at Latin America and South America with a friendly eye," Lula da Silva said last week. "We are a democratic and peaceful continent and the United States should look at production and development, not only drug-trafficking and organized crime."
Lula da Silva who wants to give Brazil a greater voice on the international stage, including a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council criticized the US for stripping Bolivia of trade preferences last year because it allegedly did too little to combat drugs.
He said Washington should help the poor Andean nation fight poverty and drugs by increasing commerce and investment.
Praised by Wall Street for adopting market-friendly policies, Lula said he will urge Obama to improve ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce US critic and end the almost 50 year US trade embargo of Cuba.
"It's impossible not to talk about the Cuban embargo. It's indicative of US policy toward the region," Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters on Wednesday.
Ailing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has expressed cautious optimism about Obama. Chavez said last week that he had authorized Lula da Silva to talk to Obama on his behalf, but added he has doubts about Obama's willingness to improve relations.
Brazil has high hopes for the visit and makes much of the fact that Lula is one of the first heads of state to be received in Washington by Obama, following visits by the prime ministers of Britain and Japan.
Brazilian officials also are encouraged by what they see as common ground on policy and similarities in their rise to power. Lula is Brazil's first working-class president and Obama is the first African-American to win the White House.
"There's an affinity of thought that will allow us to deepen the relationship," Amorim said.
Brazil as a leading global exporter of agriculture commodities is lobbying strongly for free trade and a quick agreement on the WTO Doha round. But US Trade Representative's criticism of proposed safeguards for developing countries in the Doha round of global trade negotiations dampened hopes Lula da Silva could persuade Obama to push for a quick conclusion to the seven-year-old talks.
The magnitude of the economic crisis in the US also may make it difficult for Brazil to focus Obama's attention on Cuba and Venezuela let alone Brazil's demand for a cut to US import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol.
"He's not going to solve the ethanol problem or get any pledges of investment, much less advance Doha in midst of a global crisis," said Rubens Barbosa, a former Brazilian ambassador to Washington. "And the US Congress is approving a minimalist reform of the Cuban embargo."
"He will get recognition that Brazil is a special partner for its growing economic importance and its role as a moderator in the region and given the relative US indifference toward Latin America, that's not bad."
Mercopress
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
- ""What I want is for the United States to look at Latin America and South America with a friendly eye,"
Robbing Hook should better re-read his own statements duri9ng the last three years...against the USA ! Liars always lie.....guaranteed.
-"We are a democratic and peaceful continent"
Ohhh yessssssssss. Vote buying is the norm. And Brazil is so peaceful that it has one the World Highest crimes rate...ON EARTH !
What else can liars say ?
- ""There's an affinity of thought that will allow us to deepen the relationship,"
Once more, re-read the many Robbing Hook statements of the last 3 years.
- "Brazil as a leading global exporter of agriculture commodities is lobbying strongly for free trade"
Yessss free trade for brazilian EXPORTS. What about cars imports subject to 100 % TAX IN BRAZIL, and Brazilian import quota and tariffs restriction on Chinese textiles ? Hmmmmm....cheaters and liars can only cheat and lie....until proven otherwise.
"Brazil's demand for a cut to US import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol."
America has a much lower tax on brazilian ethanol, than Brazil tax on cars MADE in America.
Why not make a deal for a free trade as Lula suggested. Ethanol free of American import tax, and cars made in America free
of Brazil import tax ?
Aïe....aïe...... Lula has already an headache.......reading this proposal from Ohhlala ! laugh.
Other developed countries should do the same deal.
Just imagine the Brazilian car industry...BACK TO ZERO !
After all, Brazil has Noooooo Brazilian car makers.....until proven otherwise. They too need to preserve their own employments.
Why then should their companies set up plants in emerging nations and not increase their own local production by closing plants
in emerging nations ???????
Hopefully people remember what I said right after Ohhlala election in November :
THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE AND NOT NECESSARILY WHAT ASIA/EUROPE/SOUTH AFRICA BELIEVE !
But then Europe and Asia will do the same...against emerging nations....!
And what will emerging nations do ? what can they close or reduce in developed nations ? NOT MUCH...FOR SURE !
THEY HAVE NOT INVESTED MUCH ANY WAY IN DEVELOPED NATIONS.
Ohhhhhh it all will be done in a stealth way ! the "buy America" cant be printed officially, but still will be implemented one way or the other.
Noooo noooo not to all extend but to some extend. But in a pernicious way. GUARANTEED !