Lula accumulates unforced errors in foreign policy

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva started his third presidential term with a massive advantage on the foreign policy front: his predecessor had committed so many egregious mistakes, straining ties with virtually all of Brazil’s main partners, that simply not being Jair Bolsonaro provided Lula with considerable global goodwill from Washington to Brussels and Buenos Aires to Beijing. 

Indeed, even before taking office, Lula’s promise that “Brazil is back [on the world stage],” made at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt last November, produced a powerful narrative that was readily embraced by international observers. 

This benign scenario has allowed Brazil’s president to bag a series of early foreign policy wins. Not only did Germany and Norway relaunch the Amazon Fund, which had been suspended under Mr. Bolsonaro, but the U.S. and United Kingdom announced financial contributions, too. Japan’s decision to invite Brazil to the G7 summit as an observer — which had not occurred for 14 years — also showed that Latin America’s largest nation had recovered its international prestige. Numerous leaders from around the world lined up to meet Lula to mark the normalization of bilateral ties.

And yet, the president has also accumulated a remarkable number of unforced errors. 

Take the case of Ukraine: while one may disagree with the president’s decision to prioritize the matter in the early months of his presidency, his efforts to take...