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00:00 Turning to other news now, today is the third and final day of President Emmanuel Macron's
00:06 state trip to Brazil. Now, during the visit, the French president has been focusing on
00:11 the economy and on climate change, seeking to strengthen ties with the government of
00:17 Lula da Silva after years of tension during the tenure of Jair Bolsonaro. To tell us a
00:23 bit more now, Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez joins me. He's the managing director of Aurora
00:29 Macro Strategies. Good to talk to you on the programme. Thanks for making the time.
00:33 Thank you for having me on.
00:35 Can you tell us first of all, how important Macron's trip is for Brazil and for this Brazilian
00:43 government?
00:45 I think it's important for Brazil. Brazil has always been in sort of an interesting
00:50 position geopolitically. It's been sort of loath to align itself when there's sort of
00:57 great power struggles going on elsewhere and sort of viewed itself historically as better
01:03 able to benefit from, you know, multipolarity and being able to sort of seamlessly move
01:12 between coalitions than anything else. And that really the best way to understand Brazil's
01:17 sort of view on geopolitics generally and on its role diplomatically is that. At the
01:23 same time, it's difficult to find a country as large as Brazil, which is 50 percent of
01:28 the population, the landmass, the economy of South America, that is not feared by any
01:32 of its neighbours. So Brazil also has a tendency to seek friends far away from home and sort
01:39 of keep a somewhat lower profile in its own backyard as a result. The idea of Europe and
01:46 Brazil, you know, sort of strengthening economic ties through the Mercosur deal, that's been
01:52 going on for a long time. It had a lot of struggles, as you mentioned, because Europe,
01:58 Brussels had a bit of an allergy to Bolsonaro rhetorically, politically. And there were,
02:05 you know, certain moments in which Bolsonaro took to Twitter, insulted Macron's wife at
02:12 one point, which ended up creating much more of a stir. And so this is something that's
02:17 been delayed for a long time. So expectations are really high in Brazil. But in as much
02:22 as the economic ramifications, there's a lot of importance to it in terms of ecology. But
02:28 I mean, Brazil's two biggest trading partners by a large margin are the United States and
02:33 China, that there's very little chance of this changing as a result of anything that
02:39 happens here. It is, I would argue, more important for Lula personally, potentially, than it
02:45 is for Brazil. Lula has entered his third presidency and found that the presidency has
02:51 weakened a lot since the first two times he held it, which has been a little bit of a
02:56 struggle. The economics in Brazil, the macro economy is actually quite strong. And he's
03:02 personally popular to an extent. But there's still a lot of sort of economic malaise among
03:07 the private sector. They're looking for some sort of signal that positive, you know, positive
03:13 change is coming, that there's something that they can be optimistic about. And so far,
03:18 it's been difficult for the Lula government to try and get that across.
03:22 And on Lula himself, on social media during Macron's trip, there's been some suggestion
03:29 of a bromance between the pair. There's been footage of them embracing rather warmly. Do
03:35 you think there's something substantive behind their apparent friendliness for each other?
03:40 Or is that just optics in front of the camera?
03:43 Well, they're both generationally talented politicians for their own spheres. They are
03:51 both quite gregarious. I'm sure that, you know, there's an extent to which, you know,
03:59 they may personally like each other. At the same time, there is a lot riding on this in
04:04 terms of sort of Lula's future. Lula is not a young man anymore by Latin American presidential
04:12 ages, although he is slightly younger than the average for U.S. presidential finalists.
04:21 And there's a lot of questions within the PT right now about whether he's the standard
04:25 bearer, you know, for the party moving forward after these four years are up. That's a main
04:30 big conversation that's going on within his party right now. In the old days, during his
04:36 first two terms, Lula was tremendously popular personally. Even opposition politicians would
04:41 be lining up to take pictures with him. That hasn't quite happened this time, partially
04:47 because the presidency, as I mentioned, is weaker now, partially because Brazil has become
04:51 so much more polarized. So anything Lula can do personally to sort of, you know, bring
04:56 that magic back, to put himself in the limelight, to make himself, you know, a little bit more
05:03 of a international brand, similar to in the aughts when he was one of the most popular
05:09 politicians on the planet. That's something that is actually important to his own future
05:14 within the party and whether he gets a chance to lead it.
05:18 Indeed. Lots more I'd like to ask you, sir, but unfortunately, we're running rather tight
05:21 on time. We're going to have to leave it there. But thank you very much indeed. Daniel Lansberg,
05:25 Rodrigo is talking to us on the programme.