NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden and his Brazilian equivalent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, played up their shared love for employees’ rights Wednesday as the leaders of the Western Hemisphere’s 2 biggest democracies satisfied in New York, steering clear in public about their distinctions on Ukraine and other matters.
They revealed a brand-new collaboration on supporting labor while preventing freely goingover disagreements such as U.S. policy towards Cuba and Russia’s war in Ukraine, simple hours priorto Lula’s first-ever bilateral conference with his Ukrainian equivalent. In remarks to pressreporters, Biden and Lula were excited to displayscreen their shared objectives on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Biden lookedfor to tie the conference to domestic matters. Long a champ of labor unions, Biden is browsing strikes in the U.S. by autoworkers, filmwriters and stars who are lookingfor muchbetter pay and securities in a altering international economy. He has decreased the demand by the United Auto Workers leader to signupwith the picket line.
“When the middle does well, everyone does well,” Biden informed Lula. “Working-class folks have a possibility to relocation up. And the rich still do great, as long as they pay their taxes.”
Lula stated he had neverever heard an American president speak so extremely of employees and explained their typical cause as a possibility to change ties inbetween the nations.
“This conference here, for me, is more than a bilateral conference; it is the renewal of a brand-new age in the relationship inbetween the U.S. and Brazil. It is a relationship of equatesto,” Lula stated. He lateron explained it as “a golden minute for us.”
Initial hopes that Lula would show a strong ally for Biden haveactually been tempered in current months, with the Brazilian leader voicing opposition on some problems and at times even appearing to thumb his nose at Washington.
That has consistedof dismissing claims of Venezuela’s authoritarianism, calling for reduced reliance on the dollar for international trade and implicating the U.S. of fueling bloodshed in Ukraine by offering military help — and refusing to supply munitions himself. In his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Lula slammed the U.S. embargo and sanctions targeting Cuba.
The White House provided a readout that revealed Biden independently raised some of his policy arguments with Lula.
The U.S. president attempted to make the case that Russia’s war in Ukraine has hurt poorer nations by pressing up food and energy rates, stating that Russia must return to its grain offer with Ukraine to assistance ease those pressures. Biden likewise laidout the actions that he thinks oughtto be taken to help democracy in Venezuela.
The U.S. president had wintry relations with Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, an open admirer of Donald Trump who waited weeks priorto recognizin