The two main speeches at the opening of the UN General Assembly came from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and United States President Donald Trump. The leaders spoke about related topics, but the content of the speeches was antagonistic, exposing the difference in vision of the global order between the two.
In the opinion of Sérgio Costa, professor of sociology at the Free University of Berlin, it was an important and strong speech, not only for the defense of multilateralism, but for the statesmanlike stance demonstrated by Lula during the speech.
“I think Lula showed this well, the importance of multilateralism for global health, for example. If we don’t have multilateralism, there is a lack of vaccines and eradicated diseases return. Climate and the environment are multilateral agendas. Prevention against wars, since we are living in a world with records of wars, and they are wars of territorial expansion, a fact that we imagined had remained in the 20th century, but this returns with a great force”, he says to BdF connection, and Radio Brasil de Fato.
Trump, on the other hand, surprised little by defending his country’s interests, seeking to place it at the center of the world. “These are imperialist interests of a power that has lost space in the world and is trying to regain that space”, assesses Costa. The professor highlights the document that guides the American security plan released at the end of last year, which explains the objective of transforming Latin America into a zone of influence, and Brazil has presented itself as an obstacle.
Trump adopted a violent speech, talked about annihilating Iran, made direct threats to Cuba and made no mea culpa regarding Venezuela, admitting that the interest was always oil. “If we did not have a counterpart in different states in Latin America willing to hand over wealth and national sovereignty to the USA, the strategy adopted by the USA would not work. It uses elites who associate themselves with this discourse of American hegemony, selling the homeland to build more power internally”, he explains.
For Sérgio Costa, one possibility to change this state of affairs would be for Trump to suffer a defeat in the mid-term elections. Thus, the way would be open for nations to strengthen the multipolar order. “I believe that it is possible to build multilateralism on the foundations it has today. In other words, even though these international organizations are weakened, they have not disappeared”, he argues.
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During election hours, until October 1st, the newspaper BdF Connection airs in two editions, from Monday to Friday: the first, from 12:25 pm to 2 pm, and the second, unchanged, from 5 pm, on Radio Brasil de Fato98.9 FM in Greater São Paulo, with simultaneous transmission also on YouTube do Brasil de Fato.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br
