From Rio de Janeiro
The eventual victory of Lula da Silva in Brazil will have as one of its consequences the reincorporation of the country to the brics (Brazil did not withdraw, but went on to have a very low profile, weakening the bloc made up of Russia, India, China and South Africa).
Brazil was representing Latin America in the Brics. Since its inception, the Brics have been constituting themselves in the space of a multipolar world, an alternative to the declining North American hegemony in the world. Uniting China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil, a powerful international force was being organized.
The Brics unite the two largest powers after the United States – Russia and China – and emerging powers from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Brazil’s policy shift in the last five years has left the Brics lame. The return of Brazil will recompose the strategic alliance foundation of the 21st century.
From that point of view, 2022 is also a year of transition. There is currently a polarization between the United States and its strategic allies – Europe, Japan -, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other. Latin America is a disputed region of the influence of the two blocs.
China has its advanced commercial relations, which makes the country the main commercial partner of a large part of the countries of the continent. And it counts on their direct investments, in the sectors in which they have direct interests.
Russia has political relations with some countries, with which it tries to strengthen contacts, as in the case of Argentina, with the meeting between Alberto Fernández and Vladimir Putin.
The Brics would be the quintessential space for all its members to enhance their strength. An alliance in which China, Russia and Brazil will once again play a fundamental role. Since the coup in Brazil in 2016, Russia and China have strengthened their ties through a strategic agreement on economic, political and military relations.
Should Lula’s Brazil rejoin, the Brics’ force will be much greater than it has been in the past. At the same time, the United States will be weaker than it was a few years ago. The dispute for hegemony in the 21st century will become more heated.
This will affect the destiny of the world in this century, but also the projections of Latin America in the world. Because the continent is the epicenter of the most important struggles in the contemporary world. Because it is here where the greatest transformations of the neoliberalismboth in the radically neoliberal governments, and in the only anti-neoliberal governments in the world.
For this reason, Latin America has given rise to the main Left leaders in this century: Hugo Chávez, Lula, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Pepe Mujica, López Obrador, Alberto Fernández. That have set the tone for the left in this century.
The first decade saw those governments and leaders emerge. The second saw the crisis of some of them and the return of neoliberal governments. The third projects to have a set of anti-neoliberal governments – Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Venezuela, – to which Brazil and Colombia can be added -, which can resume, strengthen and prolong Latin American integration processes.
It can restore relations with Asia, with Europe, with Africa and with the United States itself, starting from a position of strength. And develop an economic model that is not just anti-neoliberal, but that formulates a post-neoliberal accumulation model.
The general framework of the 21st century will continue to be that of the hegemonic dispute between the decline of the United States and the rise of the Brics, the slope of a unipolar world and the strengthening of a multipolar world, in which an integrated Latin America will play a decisive role.