Brazilian president expects ‘definitive solution’ in the coming days over tariffs raised by US over Bolsonaro jailing.
Published On 27 Oct 202527 Oct 2025
Share
A trade deal between Brazil and the United States could be sealed within days, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has asserted.
Lula made the statement in Kuala Lumpur on Monday after meeting with US President Donald Trump. Lula has been seeking a deal since the White House slapped a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian exports in July due to legal pressure on Trump ally and former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Lula described his meeting with Trump on Sunday, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, as “surprisingly good”, and said he received assurance that a deal can be reached soon.
“He guaranteed to me that we will reach an agreement,” Lula told a news conference. “I am very confident that in a few days we will reach a solution.”
Later, as he made his way to Japan, Trump also signalled that a deal is likely following “a great meeting”.
“We’ll see what happens,” the US president told reporters. “They’d like to do a deal.”
A deal could avert punitive US tariffs after months of animosity between Lula and Trump, whose relationship has warmed since an unscheduled meeting at the United Nations in New York earlier this month.
The Trump administration imposed a tariff of 50 percent on Brazilian products in July. It linked the decision to what the US president described as a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro.
Lula said that during the meeting in Malaysia he had presented Trump with a document outlining arguments against the tariff hike.
While the document acknowledged the US has the right to impose the measures, its move was based on “mistaken information”, the Brazilian president said.
Trump did not commit to suspending the tariff hikes, but also did not raise any conditions during their talks, Lula said.
“I’m convinced that in a few days we’ll have a definitive solution, you know, between the United States and Brazil, so that life can continue well and happily,” he concluded.
“He guaranteed to me that we will reach an agreement,” Lula said, speaking through an interpreter.
In a separate interview with reporters, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira described the meeting as “very positive” and “very productive”.
“The meeting was very positive, and the final outcome is excellent. President Trump stated that he will instruct his team to begin a process, a period of bilateral negotiations,” Vieira added.
Lula has previously labelled the US tariff a “mistake”, citing a $410bn US trade surplus with Brazil over the past 15 years.
He has also noted that far-right political figure Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election, had been given a fair trial, and that his case should not factor in their trade negotiations.
“Bolsonaro is part of the past now in Brazilian history,” he said.
It should matter little to the Chinese that American diplomats and a handful of their western allies will not be attending the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. What truly matters is that the Russians are coming.
The above is not an arbitrary statement. It is supported with facts. According to a survey conducted by China’s Global Times newspaper, the majority of the Chinese people value their country’s relations with Russia more than that of the EU and certainly more than that of the United States. The newspaper reported that such a finding makes it “the first time in 15 years that China-US ties did not top the list of the important bilateral relations in the Global Times annual survey.”
In fact, some kind of an alliance is already forming between China and Russia. The fact that the Chinese people are taking note of this and are supporting their government’s drive towards greater integration – political, economic and geostrategic – between Beijing and Moscow, indicates that the informal and potentially formal alliance is a long-term strategy for both nations.
American hostilities towards China, as seen by the Chinese, have become unbearable, and the Chinese people and government seem to have lost, not only any trust, however modest, of Washington, but of its own political system as well. 66 per cent of all Chinese either disapproved of the US democratic system – or whatever remains of it – or believe that US democracy has sharply declined. Ironically, the vast majority of Americans share such a bleak view of their own country, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2019 and again by the Michigan Public Policy Survey in 2021.
This leads us to two possible conclusions: First, the Chinese people will not be pushing for an American-style democracy any time soon and, second, the Chinese trust in the US does not hinge on what political party controls the White House or Congress.
While the Chinese negative view of the US is unmistakably clear, Beijing remains hopeful that existing divisions with the European Union would allow it to expand economically in a region that is rife with financial and political opportunities, thus strategic growth. This fact offers China and Russia yet another area of potential cooperation, as Russia is also keen to expand into the European markets using its recently completed Nord Stream 2 gas project. Though Europe is already struggling with gas shortages, Europeans are divided on whether Russia should be allowed to claim a massive geostrategic influence by having such sway over the EU energy needs.
Germany, which already receives nearly a third of its gas supplies from Russia – through Nord Stream 1 – is worried that allowing Nord Stream 2 to operate would make it too dependent on Russian gas supplies. Under intense pressure from Washington, Germany is caught between a rock and a hard place: it needs Russian gas to keep its economy afloat, but is worried about American retaliation. To appease Washington, the German government threatened, on 16 December, to block the new pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine. But is Germany in a position that allows it to make such demands?
Meanwhile, Washington is keeping a close watch on Russia’s and China’s strategic expansion westward, and it views the ‘threat’ posed by both countries with great alarm. In his recent visit to Scotland to take part in the COP26, US President Joe Biden accused China and Russia of “walking away” on “a gigantic issue”, referring to climate change. China has “lost the ability to influence people around the world and here in COP. The same way I would argue with Russia,” Biden said on 3 November.
But will such rhetoric make any difference, or sway traditional US allies to boycott the lucrative deals and massive economic opportunities presented by the two emerging Asian giants?
According to Eurostat, in 2020, China overtook the US as Europe’s largest import and third-largest export partner. Moreover, according to Nature magazine, most European countries largely depend on Russian energy sources, with the European Union estimated to import nearly 40 per cent of its natural gas from Russia.
In the face of these vastly changing realities, the US seems to be running out of options. The Summit for Democracy, orchestrated by Washington last December, seemed like a desperate cry for attention as opposed to celebrating the supposed democratic countries. 111 countries participated in the conference. The participants were handpicked by Washington and included such countries as Israel, Albania and Ukraine. China and Russia were, of course, excluded, not because of their lack of democratic credentials – such notions are often of no relevance to the politicised US definition of ‘democracy’ – but because they, along with others, were meant to be left isolated in the latest US hegemonic move.
The conference, expectedly, turned out to be an exercise in futility. Needless to say, the US is in no position to give democracy lessons to anyone. The attempted coup in Washington by tens of thousands of angry US militants on 6 January, 2021 – coupled with various opinion polls attesting to Americans’ lack of faith in their elected institutions – places the US democracy brand at an all-time low.
As the US grows desperate in its tactics – aside from increasingly ineffectual sanctions, aggressive language and the relentless waving of the democracy card – China and Russia continue to draw closer to one another, on all fronts. In an essay entitled ‘Respecting People’s Democratic Rights’, written jointly by the ambassadors of Beijing and Moscow in Washington, Qin Gang and Anatoly Antonov wrote in the National Interest magazine that the democracy summit was “an evident product of (US’s) Cold-War mentality,” which “will stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world, creating new ‘dividing lines’.”
But there is more than their mutual rejection of American hostilities that is bringing China and Russia closer. The two countries are not motivated by their fear of the American military or some NATO invasion. Russia’s and China’s militaries are moving from strength to strength and neither country is experiencing the anxiety often felt by smaller, weaker and relatively isolated countries that have faced direct or indirect US military threats.
To push back against possible NATO expansion, the Russian military is actively mobilising in various regions at its western borders. For its part, the Chinese military has made it clear that any US-led attempt aimed at altering the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait would provoke an immediate military retaliation. In a virtual meeting with the US President, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Biden on 16 November that the US was “playing with fire”. “Whoever plays with fire will get burnt,” he threatened.
The Chinese-Russian alliance aims largely at defending the two countries’ regional and international interests, which are in constant expansion. In the case of China, the country is now a member of what is considered the world’s largest economic pact. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was officiated on 1 January, covers a global market that caters to around 30 per cent of the world’s population.
Russia, too, operates based on multiple regional and international alliances. One of these military alliances is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is currently involved in ‘peacekeeping’ operations in Kazakhstan. From Syria in the Middle East, to Venezuela in South America to Mali in West Africa and beyond, Russia’s military influence has increased to the extent that, in September 2021, Moscow signed military cooperation agreements with Africa’s two most populous nations, Nigeria and Ethiopia, challenging the traditional dominance of the US and France on the African continent.
Informally, China and Russia are already operating according to a regional and global model that can be compared to that of the now-defunct Warsaw Treaty Organisation (1955-91), a political and military alliance between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries that aimed at counter-balancing the US-led NATO alliance. The Warsaw Pact pushed back against US-led western hegemony and laboured to protect the interests of the pact’s members throughout the world. History seems to be repeating itself, though under different designations.
Historically, the two countries have had a difficult and, at times, antagonistic relationship, dating back to the 19th century. During the Nikita Khrushchev era, Beijing and Moscow even broke their ties altogether. The Sino-Soviet split of 1960 was earth-shattering to the extent that it transformed the bipolarity of the Cold War, where China operated as an entirely independent party.
Though diplomatic relations between Beijing and Moscow were restored in 1989, it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that cooperation between both nations intensified. For example, the decision, in 1997, to coordinate their diplomatic positions in the United Nations gave birth to the Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order. That agreement between Russia and China laid the foundations for the actively evolving multi-polar world that is currently transpiring before our eyes.
Present reality – namely US, NATO, EU pressures – has compelled Russia and China to slowly, but surely cement their relationship, especially on the economic, diplomatic and military fronts. Writing in Carnegie Moscow Centre, Alexander Gabuev explained that, according to data provided by the Russian Federal Customs Service, “China’s share in Russian foreign trade grew from 10.5 per cent in 2013 (before the Ukraine crisis and sanctions) to 16.7 per cent in 2019 and 18.3 per cent in the pandemic-struck 2020.”
Moreover, the two countries are holding regular large-scale joint military exercises, aimed at strengthening their growing security and military cooperation.
This already close relation is likely to develop even further in the near future, especially as China finds itself compelled to diversify its energy sources. This became a pressing need following recent tensions between Australia, a NATO member, and China. Currently, Australia is the main natural gas supplier to Beijing.
On its own, Russia cannot conclusively defeat Western designs. China, too, despite its massive economic power, cannot play a geopolitical game of this calibre without solid alliances. Both countries greatly benefit from building an alternative to US-led political, economic and military alliances, starting with NATO. The need for a Russian-Chinese alliance becomes even more beneficial when seen through the various opportunities presenting themselves: growing weakness in the US’s own political system, cracks within US-EU relations and the faltering power of NATO itself. Turkey, for example, though a NATO member, has for years been exploring its own geopolitical alliances outside the NATO paradigm. Turkey is already cementing its ties with both Russia and China, and on various fronts. Other countries, for example Iran and various South American countries, that have been targeted by the US for refusing to toe Washington’s political line, are desperately seeking non-western alliances to protect their interests, their sovereignty and their heavily sanctioned economies.
While it is still too early to claim that China and Russia are anywhere near a full-blown alliance of the Warsaw nature, there is no reason to believe that the cooperation between both countries will be halted or even slow down anytime soon. The question is how far are Beijing and Moscow willing to go to protect their interests.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Early into his second year in the majors, a young Clayton Kershaw was enduring a sophomore slump with the Dodgers. Looking for a way to complement his predominantly fastball/curveball mix, he began toying around with a slider in his between-starts bullpen sessions.
When Brad Ausmus, the well-traveled 40-year-old backup catcher on that year’s Dodgers team, heard about the experiment, he didn’t initially think much of it. That a raw 21-year-old talent would be tinkering with a new pitch didn’t come as much of a surprise.
But when Ausmus asked the club’s bullpen catcher, Mike Borzello, how Kershaw’s new pitch looked, he got his first inkling it might be special.
“He was like, ‘It’s really good,’” Ausmus recalled recently. “I said, ‘Oh, so maybe he’ll throw it in a couple more bullpens before taking it into the game.’ And he’s like, ‘Ehh, I think he might take it into the game his next start.’”
A few weeks later, Ausmus got his first chance to see it up close, calling it sporadically in a Freeway Series game at Angel Stadium. That day, Kershaw spun a gem, throwing seven scoreless innings in a Dodgers victory.
But it was afterward, as Kershaw, Ausmus and longtime Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt reviewed the outing, that the longtime catcher started to understand that Kershaw wasn’t just any young pitcher. That his tantalizing talent was matched by a preternatural aptitude. That his precocious battery mate was both a physical force and pitching prodigy.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, left, talks with former teammate Brad Ausmus, right, and coach Matt Martin before a game in 2019, when Ausmus was the manager of the Angels.
(Alex Gallardo/AP)
“Keep in mind, this is a rookie, basically, talking to a guy who’s been in the big leagues 17, 18 years,” Ausmus said. “And he goes, ‘Brad, I wish you would call more sliders.’”
Initially surprised, Ausmus thought to himself: “Really? This is a brand new pitch. We probably threw 10 or 15 of them.”
But Kershaw could already see the bigger picture. He immediately sensed how the new pitch might profoundly influence his game.
“If you think about it, the fastball was 95, the curveball was probably in the low-to-mid 80s, so there was a lot of separation in terms of velocity. It almost gave the hitter time to reload before swinging,” Ausmus said. “The slider did not allow the hitters to do that.”
Seventeen years, three Cy Young Awards, two World Series titles, and — very nearly — 3,000 strikeouts later, the rest has been singularly impressive history.
“It speaks to not only his knowledge, but his ability and his confidence,” said Ausmus, now bench coach for the New York Yankees. “He has an aptitude for the game. He adjusts. And he continues to perform at a high level. It really is remarkable … I miss having that guy as a teammate.”
When Clayton Kershaw takes the mound on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, he will need just three strikeouts to become the 20th member of Major League Baseball’s 3,000 strikeout club.
And, just as it was almost two decades ago, it will be the same primary three-pitch mix that is all but certain to lift him into such rarified air.
For better or (very rarely) worse, at full strength or in ailing health, the now 37-year-old future Hall of Famer has managed to perfect one of the sport’s all-time signature plans of attack on the mound:
Establish the fastball on the edge of the plate for a strike. Tunnel the slider on the same trajectory to get awkward swings when it tails off late. Mix in a curveball when a change of pace is needed. And never be afraid to change the sequence and tendencies of that infallible trio of pitches, using instinct and feel to amplify his physical talent.
“It’s what’s upstairs [that makes him special],” current Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “He’s always a step ahead.”
Countless big-league pitchers have used a similar fastball-slider-curveball repertoire. Even in Kershaw’s prime years, there were always others who could throw harder, or produce more break, or manipulate the ball with more gravity-defying spin.
What separates Kershaw are more foundational skills. His unwavering execution, in seasons he threw 200-plus innings or those in which he battled increasingly persistent injuries to his back, shoulder and even a bothersome left big toe. His unflappable persistence to move from one pitch, one start, one year to the next; never satisfied with his best moments nor shaken by his rare failures.
“He just knows the ins and outs of baseball, and has such good feel,” longtime teammate and backstop Austin Barnes said. “He’s like a train that comes at you consistently.”
That’s why, when Kershaw does inevitably cross the 3,000-strikeout threshold, it will be equal parts a testament to his talent and durability — an accomplishment that required him to continually reinvent his game without ever changing his fundamental nature as a pitcher.
“Clayton has everything the right way, on the field, off the field, over a long period of time,” manager Dave Roberts said last week.
“It’s hard to wrap your head around what it takes,” he added, “as far as longevity, and greatness.”
“He’s like a train that comes at you consistently,” former Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes, center, said of pitcher Clayton Kershaw, left.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Few players have produced the kind of prolonged period of greatness Kershaw did during the peak of his career. Starting in that 2009 season, he went on a run of sub-3.00 ERA campaigns in 11 of his next 12 years. In seven of them, he had 200 or more strikeouts, including a career-high 301 punchouts in 2015. Eight of his 10 All-Star selections came in that stretch, as did his three Cy Young Awards and a 2014 National League MVP (still the last time a pitcher won the game’s highest individual honor).
His only blemishes in that time were repeated disappointments in the playoffs. But even in most of those, he was tasked with trying to save the team’s season while pitching on short rest or desperately-needed outings out of the bullpen.
“Even with all the pressure he’s had as the Dodgers’ ace … he’s always out there, he’s always willing to take the ball,” Barnes said. “I think that goes underappreciated. He’s willing to put himself out there, even when he doesn’t feel his best.”
To Barnes, who has caught more Kershaw starts than anyone other than A.J. Ellis, the way Kershaw strives to always be better is what has made it all possible. It was a trait he noticed in one of his first games catching him in 2017 against the San Diego Padres.
“I kind of went against the scouting report, and I called a fastball that froze the guy,” Barnes, who signed a minor-league deal with the San Francisco Giants this week after being released by the Dodgers earlier this year, recalled recently. “I remember him coming up to me after, kind of sizing me up and down, like, ‘Why’d you call that?’ I just said, ‘I just kind of felt it.’”
It was a small example of how Kershaw’s pitch mix — unchanged over the years, outside of an occasional flirtation with a variety of changeup grips — could be weaponized in ways opposing batters have long struggled to expect.
“Not everybody gets to his caliber of pitching and stuff,” Barnes said. “But the work he puts in, in the weight room, in the video room, for him to go out there and have clarity and conviction in what he needs to do, I think that’s what helps most. And the level of competitor he is. He can do it all.”
Even, in recent years, as his stuff has gradually diminished.
At the start of this season, Kershaw was just 32 strikeouts away from the 3K club — an exclusive fraternity that includes only three other left-handed pitchers, and two who spent their entire career with one team.
In past seasons, that would’ve been a total he could clear in less than a month.
But now, he joked early in his return from offseason foot and knee surgeries: “Maybe by September I’ll get there. We’ll see.”
After all, Kershaw barely touches 90 mph with his fastball even on a good day now. His slider and curveball don’t always have as much bite as they once did. Such has been the case for much of the last three seasons, as the miles on Kershaw’s arm and body have steadily caught up to him.
At the end of 2020, when Kershaw finally won his first World Series and began more seriously starting to contemplate when he might retire, he was less than 500 strikeouts away from 3,000. He seemed like a virtual lock to get there, perhaps as the last new entrant for the foreseeable future.
“He’s always a step ahead,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior, left, said recently about pitcher Clayton Kershaw when discussing the key to his success.
(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Since then, however, he had a season-ending elbow injury in 2021 that nearly required Tommy John surgery; back and shoulder problems that limited him in what were nonetheless All-Star seasons in 2022 and 2023; consecutive offseasons of surgical rehabs each of the past two winters, first on his shoulder and then his lower-body ailments; all on top of the normal aches and pains that come with pitching into someone’s late 30s.
His three-pitch arsenal remains unchanged, but figuring out ways to maximize it has been an ongoing challenge.
“He’s doing it the same way, but he’s having to figure out different ways to do it, if that makes sense,” Prior said.
Just like when he first broke into the majors, it has required him to trust what’s working best and adjust on the fly to his ever-weakening capabilities.
And yet, entering Wednesday’s potential milestone outing, Kershaw is 4-0 with a 3.03 ERA in his eight starts this season (the second-best ERA among Dodgers starters behind only Yoshinobu Yamamoto). He is coming off a particularly productive June, giving up just seven earned runs in 27 ⅔ innings. And, while they don’t come as frequently as they once did, the strikeouts are still present, with Kershaw averaging 7 ½ per nine innings over his last five starts.
To Prior, it’s a testament to Kershaw’s enduring ability to still pitch his way through a start.
“He knows when guys are looking hard and he can get them with the slider. The fastball and slider still do look the same, when he’s on, so he can pull the trigger on one or the other … And he has the equalizer with the curveball, to be able to use that to change speeds like he has his whole career.”
“Again, it’s the same pitch mix,” Prior added, “but he’s still finding ways to do it at this stage.”
To Roberts, it’s made Kershaw an example for the rest of the team to follow.
“It’s a lesson in life,” the manager said. “You don’t always have to feel perfect to be productive. I have a lot of respect for him.”
The great irony, once Kershaw does eclipse the 3,000-strikeout mark, is that punchouts have never been his primary objective.
“No, no,” Barnes said with a laugh. “He cares about winning the game and throwing up zeroes. That’s the biggest thing for him. The strikeouts are just a byproduct of him getting ahead of hitters, and being able to have [the pitches in] his mix playing off each other.”
But once that moment does arrive — fittingly, as things have lined up, likely on the Dodger Stadium mound he has dominated for almost two decades — the total will be indicative of all he has accomplished in a career of unmatched excellence, and the way he has elevated himself as one of the best pitchers in the history of the sport.
“He’s teaching me that so much of this game is still about mindset,” Prior said. “There’s so much object data, which is helpful in all aspects of our game. But part of it is still so unquantifiable. He’s just someone who has willed himself to be better than everybody else.”
