Biden, Lula vow to defend democracy in Americas

GBNEWS24DESK//

President Joe Biden and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday at the White House that the two biggest countries in the Americas have successfully seen off attacks on their democracies and will now work together on fighting the climate crisis.

“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested,” Biden told Lula, and “both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.”

Meeting in the Oval Office, Biden and Lula expressed solidarity over their similar paths.

Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020, but two months later, a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress believing his conspiracy theory that he’d been the real election winner.

In Brazil, Lula defeated right-winger Jair Bolsonaro and took office this January, but a mob of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings shortly after.

“We have some issues on which we can work together,” Lula told Biden. “First is to never again allow” the anti-democratic mob attacks.

Touting Brazil’s return to the international arena, Lula said his predecessor’s “world started and ended with fake news – in the morning, afternoon and at night. It seemed that he despised international relations.”

Biden, referring to Trump, quickly answered: “Sounds familiar.”

Biden and Lula stressed their mutual commitment to saving the Amazon rainforest and fighting global warming — efforts that Bolsonaro and Trump both sidelined.