Presidents Javier Milei, from Argentina, Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay, and Santiago Peña, from Paraguay, participated in the Llao Llao Forum — an international conference that brings together political, business, academic and civil society leaders to discuss issues of global interest — which was held last week, at the Hotel Llao Llao, in Bariloche, Argentina. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would have been the only official member of Mercosur who did not receive an invitation to attend the event, reaffirming its weakened representation in the international community.
A People’s Gazette contacted the Secretariat of Social Communication (SECOM) to obtain more information about Lula’s non-participation in the forum, but received no response.
“Brazil excluded from Mercosur! Look where the diplomatic dwarf Lula da Silva took us. Unbelievable. Nobody wants to be close to a guy who maneuvers to bring heads of state closer to the drug dictator Maduro”, commented federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), on his account on X (formerly Twitter).
In addition to the three representatives, businesspeople from all over the world were present to discuss the latest regional and international events, technological advances, the future of Argentina, among other issues linked to the private sector.
The controversial foreign policy and attempts to intervene in companies by the current government remove the possible interests of private initiatives in Brazil. Furthermore, the PT member faces strong criticism for his position in relation to the wars in the Gaza Strip and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
An exclusive event
The Llao Llao Forum was created in 2012 with the aim of generating a unique space for conversation between the business, political and social sectors. Only 100 businesspeople per year are invited to take part in this exclusive event, which has already held more than six editions. Meetings are financed by voluntary contributions from members.
The convention usually lasts two days and speaker presentations usually take place during lunch and dinner. Despite being often compared to the Davos Forum, the majority of its guests belong to technology companies, more used to traveling to Silicon Valley than to Geneva.
Like every year, the event schedule was kept confidential until the last moment. Even the guests were unaware of the speakers. Those responsible for organizing the forum chose to communicate by telephone with all guests so as not to leave written records.
“As every year, it is the organization’s custom to call meetings of all participants under Chatham House rules, to allow conversations that enhance the dynamics”, explain the organizers. Chatham House is an English non-profit organization that aims to promote sustainable growth, peaceful societies and corruption-free governments.
Chatham House rules state that participants can discuss the content of conversations outside the event venue, but cannot reveal who said what.
The presence of the three leaders, aligned in terms of political positioning, was confirmed almost at the beginning of the convention, and even some guests did not know in advance who would host the two dinners.
Lacalle Pou arrived at Llao Llao after midday on Wednesday, accompanied by businesspeople residing in Uruguay, such as Marcos Galperin (Mercado Livre), Martín Migoya and Guibert Englebienne, both founders of Globant, a software producer. They are all founding members of the forum, which took institutional form in 2015, although they have been meeting informally since 2012.
Peña arrived on Thursday morning, where he held meetings with some of the businesspeople present there. Milei closed the forum with a talk in which he called for a “liberal revolution” after addressing topics such as the legacy received by Kirchnerism, the current economic situation and the main guidelines for the next phase of his economic plan.
“I’m not going to be content with being like Germany, I want to be like Ireland. I want a profound liberal revolution, I don’t believe in a dirigiste economy”, said the Argentine Head of State.
Lula’s ill-fated foreign policy
Despite returning to Planalto with the expectation of “becoming an international leader” traveling to more than 24 countries in the first year alone and spending more than 62 days outside the country, Lula’s intention to “recover” Brazil’s image abroad leaves a lot to be desired.
In June last year, six months after taking over the Executive, the French newspaper Liberation placed the PT member on the cover of its edition with the title “Lula, the disappointment” and stated that the president has been acting like “a false friend of the West”.
The newspaper classified him as “a mirage or a blurred image”, due to his position regarding the war in Ukraine. “The Brazilian president is not the precious ally we imagined, especially when it comes to ostracizing the new pariah of the West: Russia, guilty of an intolerable invasion of Ukraine,” wrote the Liberation.
The PT member completely ignored Russia’s responsibility in the case of the invasion of Ukraine and sabotaged any possibility of becoming an intermediary in this crisis. Lula’s nods to Beijing and Moscow placed him in an uncomfortable position with the United States and European countries, which closed the door to Brazil’s possible participation in international discussions.
In turn, the invitation to the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who was received by the leader of the left in Brazil with the honors of head of state and his statement that the “problems in Venezuela’s democracy are a matter of narrative” also were not viewed favorably.
Maduro is accused by the Organization of American States (OAS) of committing crimes against humanity and, upon receiving him, Lula had to listen to criticism both from the right, as was the case with the president of Uruguay, Lacalle Pou, and from from the left, as was the case with the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, who rejected the PT member’s words.
As if that wasn’t enough, in June this year, the head of the Executive once again became prominent in the international media when, during the 37th African Union Summit in Ethiopia, he compared the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip with the extermination of Jews carried out by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.
“It is important to remember that, in 2010, Brazil was the first country to recognize the Palestinian State. We have to stop being small when we have to be big. What is happening in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people does not exist at any other historical moment. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” Lula told journalists in Addis Ababa.
According to the Real Time Big Data Institute, 83% of Brazilians rejected Lula’s speech about Israel.
While the leader of the left tries to strengthen ties with Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, Iran, Russia, Angola, China, among many other dictatorships and autocracies, Brazil moves away from the “free world” and becomes increasingly isolated from possible future investments by part of those who choose and defend the free market.
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