This article will discuss how, amid the chaos of 2025, with Trump once again slapping the world with crazy tariffs, China still hungry for commodities, and the Global South wanting a voice, Brazil has chosen to ‘be friends with everyone at once.’ Lula takes the stage at the UN, COP30, and BRICS while proclaiming the ‘end of dollar dominance,’ ‘global governance reform,’ and ‘Brazil as the leader of the southern countries.’ It maybe sounds heroic, revolutionary, and very tempting to anyone who hates global injustice. However, in reality, Brazil continues to sell increasing amounts of soybeans, meat, and iron ore to China and is becoming even more dependent. Promises of reforming the UN, IMF, and World Bank have yielded zero results. The Amazon rainforest is being deforested again to cover the budget gap caused by Trump’s tariffs. Domestic industries are slowly dying due to a flood of cheap Chinese goods. The author will present three main arguments: the failure of global reform rhetoric, the fragility of economic hedging, and the hidden domestic consequences.
On 11 November 2025, amid the hustle and bustle of COP30 in Belém, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stood on the same podium as Chinese President Xi Jinping to accept a US$10 billion green funding pledge, while in the back room his economic team was begging US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for a 60% tariff reduction. Two days later, Brazil led the BRICS+ declaration calling for ‘an end to dollar hegemony,’ even though 87% of its trade with fellow BRICS members still uses the greenback. One country, three faces, one strategy: multi-alignment. Unlike the non-alignment of the Cold War era, which firmly rejected both blocs, Lula III’s version of multi-alignment (2023–present) claims to be a smart middle ground, befriending both Washington and Beijing, leading the Global South without antagonizing the North, and maintaining autonomy in a divided world.
Rhetoric vs. Reality: Global South Ideology as a Mask
Since returning to Planalto in January 2023, Lula da Silva has continued to brand his foreign policy as ‘active and bold diplomacy’ in order to reform global governance to better reflect the voice of the Global South. In three consecutive speeches at the UN General Assembly (2023–2025), he repeatedly called for reform of the UN Security Council, the IMF, and the World Bank, claiming that Brazil is a “bridge between North and South” and a “natural leader” of developing countries. The reality, however, is quite the opposite.
Brazil’s dependence on primary commodity exports to China has actually surged, with soybeans reaching 82% (up from 78% in 2022), beef 44% (up from 38%), iron ore 61% (up from 57%), and crude oil 38% (up from 31%), according to data from Comex Stat/SECEX Brazil in November 2025. The promised global institutional reforms also ended in failure, with the G4’s proposal for permanent seats on the UN Security Council being rejected again in 2025, Brazil’s voting quota at the IMF falling from 1.72% (2023) to 1.69% (2025), and the BRICS New Development Bank only disbursing US$4.2 billion a year, less than 5% of the World Bank’s annual loans. Even at COP30, hosted by Brazil itself, the phrase ‘phase-out fossil fuels’ was removed from the final document because Brazil lobbied for the interests of Petrobras.
However, domestically, this narrative remains popular, with 64% of PT supporters believing that Brazil is ‘leading the new world’ (Datafolha, October 2025). Oliver Stuenkel (FGV São Paulo) sums it up aptly: ‘Lula is selling a revolution to his people, but what he is selling to the world is still soybeans and iron ore.’ The Global South ideology turns out to be nothing more than a convenient ideological mask to cover up the pragmatic opportunism of a country that remains trapped as a 19th-century commodity exporter.
Failed Hedging: When All Doors Are Open, None Are Truly Open
The concept of hedging in foreign policy promises strategic autonomy for middle powers such as Brazil in maintaining good relations with all major powers without exclusive commitments, thereby minimizing geopolitical risks while maximizing economic opportunities. However, Lula’s multi-alignment actually demonstrates the failure of this model, where attempts to open all doors have instead trapped Brazil in a narrow corridor of dependence. Take, for example, the Trump 2.0 tariffs imposed in August 2025, where a 50% import duty on Brazilian steel, aluminum, and digital products to the US affects billions of dollars in key exports such as meat and coffee. The annual losses are estimated at US$6–8 billion, with mass layoffs in the manufacturing and agribusiness sectors, including 1,200–1,500 workers in the Franca shoe industry alone. Brazil’s response? Not multilateral confrontation or aggressive diversification through Mercosur, but rather a failed quiet lobbying effort in Washington, followed by a 33.4% surge in exports to China in October 2025 compared to the previous year, mainly soybeans (up 74.9%) and beef (43.6%). China’s share of Brazil’s total exports jumped from 23.6% to 28.8%, deepening structural dependence on a single partner vulnerable to Beijing’s economic slowdown.
The domino effect of this strategy is becoming increasingly clear. Relations with the European Union have stalled completely, with the Mercosur–EU FTA agreement postponed again in November 2025 due to pressure from French farmers who oppose cheap meat imports from Brazil and Argentina, with Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard vowing to block a deal that ‘condemns our farmers.’ Meanwhile, BRICS+ has failed as a credible alternative, with de-dollarization reaching only 9-11% of intra-bloc transactions by 2025, with limited progress on bilateral trade such as Russia-China, rather than systemic reform. The New Development Bank (NDB) is also weak, disbursing only around US$4 billion per year for global projects, while Brazil’s infrastructure needs alone reach US$200 billion annually to achieve the 4% GDP target.
In comparison, India successfully hedged 2020–2025, where its dependence on imports from China fell from 18% to 12% through the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and the Quad alliance (US, Japan, Australia), while increasing electronics exports to the US by 240% in 2025. Brazil? Its dependence has actually increased, proving that multi-alignment is an illusion that weakens, rather than strengthens, its bargaining position.
Hidden Domestic Costs
Brazil’s multi-alignment, despite being promoted as a flexible strategy, incurs domestic costs that are often hidden behind global rhetoric. First, a flood of cheap imports from China accelerates deindustrialization and suppresses wages in the manufacturing sector. A study using Brazilian household survey data (2000–2012, updated to 2024) shows that a 1% increase in Chinese import penetration reduces unskilled workers’ wages in labor-intensive industries by 0.5–1%, while skilled workers’ wages in other industries decline due to competition for intermediate inputs. By 2025, with Chinese imports up 28%, manufacturing unemployment will reach 11.4% (IBGE, November 2025), triggering import inflation that will push CPI expectations to a 6.3% high since December 2024 and weaken the purchasing power of the working class.
Second, Amazon deforestation surged despite COP30 commitments, driven by agribusiness’s urgent need for foreign exchange to pay off debts. INPE data (August 2024–July 2025) recorded deforestation of 5,796 km², up 27% from the previous period, with forest degradation increasing 44% YoY and 163% since 2022 due to fires for soybean/meat expansion. This contradicts the 2030 target of zero illegal deforestation, with 51% of damage related to recent land fires.
Third, domestic politics exacerbate inconsistency, with the pro-US Congress forcing Lula to change Brazil’s UN vote on Ukraine three times (2023: abstain; 2024: abstain; 2025: for on the US resolution, abstain on Ukraine), damaging the credibility of multi-alignment. As a result, this strategy is not a strengthening but rather a domestic burden that is piling up.
Brazil’s Sustainability in the Future
Overall, Brazil’s Multi-alignment 2023-2025 is not the intelligent realism that is often praised, but rather opportunism wrapped in the ideology of ‘Global South leadership.’ Dependence on raw commodity exports to China is deepening, global governance reforms have never materialized, and domestic costs in the form of deindustrialization, deforestation, and inflation continue to balloon. The ‘befriend everyone’ strategy has only caused Brazil to lose leverage, not gain it.
If this pattern continues until 2026-2030, Brazil risks becoming a perpetual swing state: a large country that is constantly torn between Washington and Beijing, never able to determine its own direction, let alone lead the region or the Global South.
To escape this trap, Brazil must dare to choose. First, prioritize strategic green alliances with the European Union and India, which offer clean technology transfers. Second, launch large-scale green industrialization so that it no longer only sells soybeans and iron ore. Third, take a firm stance on one major issue, such as reforming the UN Security Council, rather than repeating the mantra of ‘all friends, no enemies.’ Only by daring to choose can Brazil stop being a smart spectator and start becoming a player that changes the rules of the game.
