BRAZIL PERSPECTIVE

Brasília, June 14, 2026. For Brasília, the Evian G7 is no ordinary summit. Lula rearranged his schedule—moving his departure forward by one day to Sunday, June 14—to be present from the opening of Monday, with the single objective of not missing Trump should the American president stay only the first day, as he had done at Canada's G7 last year. This move alone reveals Brasília's diplomatic nervousness over the American agenda.

The commercial stakes are central. Since July 2025, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has conducted an investigation under Section 301 of American trade law, targeting several Brazilian practices deemed unfair by Washington: the PIX payment system, ethanol, deforestation-fighting policies, and intellectual property. The USTR has recommended an additional 25 percent tariff on Brazilian products. According to negotiators at the Palácio do Planalto, a 12.5 percent additional tax—linked to accusations of tolerance for forced labor—is now viewed as practically certain. The deadline is July 15: that is when the USTR must publish its final report, before Trump makes an ultimate decision.

Faced with this pressure, Brasília has multiplied outreach over the past year—by phone, videoconference, and meetings in Washington—presenting official data refuting the accusations. Brazilian diplomats believe their arguments were ignored, and that a direct Lula-Trump meeting now represents the most effective lever. Development Minister Márcio Elias Rosa met with American representative Jamieson Greer on May 28; another session is expected. Yet the Brazilian government emphasizes it has made no formal request for a bilateral with Trump, nor has it received one from the White House. The possibility remains open: an impromptu meeting, like the one at the 2024 UN General Assembly, is not ruled out.

But Lula is not traveling to Evian solely to defend Brazil's commercial interests. His tenth participation in a G7—always as an invited guest, never as a member—is also an opportunity to advance a structural agenda: reform of global governance. He will speak on June 16 on international partnerships for development, advocating for an increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA), whose levels have fallen in recent years according to Philip Fox-Drummond Gough, secretary for economic affairs. On June 17, during the session on inclusive growth, Lula will defend a reform of the WTO and the UN. He had stated this objective without ambiguity to his ministers: "If the UN is not working today, we will not repair the world by destroying the UN; we will repair it by rebuilding it."

This dual positioning—as a claimant before the United States, yet as a carrier of a countervailing multilateral agenda—illustrates Brazil's posture in a recomposing world order. Lula will be accompanied by other Global South nations invited: India, Kenya, South Korea, Egypt. In parallel, he will meet with President Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The Brazilian Congress has meanwhile adopted a Reciprocity Law authorizing Brasília to respond proportionally to any hostile commercial measure from a partner—a signal sent to Washington, though not yet activated.