Weekly Report - 25 May 2023 (WR-23-21)

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was invited to this year’s G7 leaders’ summit from 19-21 May as an external partner, amid the group’s efforts to gain the favour of developing countries such as Brazil and India who maintain a non-aligned foreign policy, cooperating with the US, China and Russia, and some of whom have expressed similar calls for peace talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. This presented Lula with the opportunity to engage not only with the G7’s advanced economies, such as the US or Japan, but also with like-minded countries of the Global South, with the G7 summit proving a useful platform to burnish Brazil’s reputation as a reliable global partner on peace, trade, and environmental protection.