SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies and sweeping tariffs, saying they harm multilateralism as he met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Lula is in Russia to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, which Russia marked on Friday with a major military parade also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The latest decisions by the U.S. president to unilaterally put tariffs on trade with all countries in the world undermine the great idea of free trade and strengthening multilateralism,” Lula said during a bilateral meeting with Putin.
The leftist leader said he intends to strengthen Brazil’s strategic partnership with Russia, citing “political, commercial, cultural, scientific and technological interests” as he sees room to increase trade.
“We have the chance at this historic moment to make our commercial relationship grow a lot,” Lula said, also mentioning he was interested in cooperating with Russia on building small-sized nuclear power plants.
Brazil and Russia are both founding members of the BRICS group of major emerging economies, which also includes India, China, South Africa as well as recent joiners Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; additional reporting by Isabel Teles; writing by Gabriel Araujo; editing by Mark Heinrich)
