Brazil says China offers the best trade opportunities for the future but declines to join ‘Belt and Road’

Brazil’s President Lula and China’s President Xi Jinping have signed a joint declaration strengthening bilateral relations. Lula praised a series of agreements between the two countries, saying that China offers Brazil “more opportunities with fewer commercial risks” as a trading partner than the United States.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Brazil’s Lula da Silva at a meeting in November.

Lula added that he expects more Latin American countries will begin “to transition trading priorities” to China and away from the U.S.

“International businesses engaged in trade depend on steady political leadership in the area of trade policy,” he said, suggesting that the current trade war initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump requires a “realignment” of trading partners.

Called the “Brazil-China Community of Shared Future for a More Just World and a More Sustainable Planet,” the new pact includes 37 separate agreements on trade and cultural exchange issues.

Although China has pushed Brazil to join its Belt and Road Initiative, Lula has declined, saying previously that the initiative carries “political overtones” that could damage relations with the U.S. “Although we actively seek to expand trade with China and other new partners, we recognize our long friendship with the North Americans and plan to continue it.”

Former foreign minister and chief policy advisor and to Lula, Celso Armorin, was more blunt in describing why Brazil is “pivoting away” from the U.S. as a major trading partner. “China now has the resources to invest abroad that the United States does not,” he said. “The U.S. adopted a policy of indiscriminately applying new tariffs to force countries into negotiations. We won’t play that game.”

Armorin, who helped craft many of the new trade agreements with China, said actions by the U.S. have caused a “breakdown of multilateralism,” claiming the approach applied by Trump is what led to the Great Depression in the 1930s. “The record is indisputable about this,” he says.

“The collapse of the multilateral system brings with it far greater damage than any comparative advantage it may bring to one country, so it is time to realign,” Armorin said. He added: “We are seeing the emergence of a new power order in the world and the decline of the old one.”