Macron and Lula Deepen Ties With Trip to Amazon

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: French President Emmanuel Macron visits Brazil, Venezuela’s opposition maneuvers its way through new electoral obstacles, and Colombia’s best-known daughter releases a new album.

‘A Franco-Brazilian Moment’

It was the head-of-state photo session seen round the internet. On Tuesday, the official social media accounts for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and French President Emmanuel Macron shared images of the two leaders together on a trip through the Amazon. In one photo, Lula and Macron grasped hands, smiling and peering out over the bow of a ship; in another, they bounded through the sun-dappled rainforest.

The subtext was clear: The trade agreement between South American customs union Mercosur and the European Union may be on life support, but Brazil and France are still doing big things together. That day, the two leaders announced a bilateral plan to invest $1.1 billion over four years in conservation and sustainable agriculture in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and French Guiana, the latter a French overseas territory.

Macron’s visit to Brazil lasted until Thursday, when the French leader and Lula held an official meeting at Brazil’s presidential palace and signed a series of cooperation agreements.

“We are living in a Franco-Brazilian moment,” Macron’s office said. His delegation included officials from some of France’s biggest companies, including Carrefour and Airbus. Their meetings in Brazil intended to back up Macron’s assertion that the two countries can still grow their bilateral business in the absence of a new trade deal.

Whether they will be successful remains to be seen. Regardless, business is not the only reason Macron and Lula have sought closer ties. “Today, France is one of the developed countries that is most open and sensitive to certain demands of the global south,” said Maiara Folly, the executive director of Plataforma CIPÓ, a Brazilian think tank.

France has supported proposals from countries such as Barbados to reform the international climate finance system, as well as suggestions from countries such as Brazil to seek a global minimum tax on billionaires. These topics are among Brazil’s priorities for its G-20 presidency this year.

It was noteworthy that the $1.1 billion announced for the Amazon is due to be financed partially by the French and Brazilian governments, Folly told Foreign Policy. Wealthy countries often favor climate finance schemes that assume significant contributions from the private sector, but “developing countries generally worry that this emphasis on the private sector is a way to downplay the rich countries’ responsibility,” she said.

The France-Brazil Amazon investment initiative appeared to respond to those concerns. The plan includes a pledge to carry out technology transfers. On Wednesday, Lula and Macron unveiled a submarine that was built by an existing bilateral technology transfer program. France is renowned for its submarine production capabilities, which were the basis for a joint initiative with Australia that was canceled in 2021.

The possibility of a second Trump presidency in the United States looms large in Europe, and the continent is on the hunt for other dependable allies. Macron has tried to assert himself as a global leader in this unstable environment. The French president acknowledged that he and Lula had discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine and Venezuela’s political crisis.

In Brazil, Macron gains a key interlocutor in the global south. A friendly Brazil could help bring other developing countries into France’s fold. “Among traditional powers, none is closer to Brazil than France,” Lula said at his press conference with Macron on Thursday.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, April 2: The United Nations Human Rights Council discusses Haiti.

Friday, April 5: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hosts Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in Ottawa.

Monday, April 8, to Monday, April 22: Venezuela hosts talks between the Colombian government and National Liberation Army rebels.

What We’re Following

Arévalo in Washington. The White House reinforced its support for Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo’s anti-corruption efforts on Monday during Arévalo’s visit to Washington, where he met separately with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The United States also announced $170 million in new economic assistance to Guatemala and said it would continue to speak up for Arévalo’s good governance agenda.

At the Washington headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS), Arévalo then made an unusual request: He asked that the OAS observe the selection of new judges at Guatemala’s Supreme Court and appellate courts due to occur later this year. Usually, monitors only track presidential elections, but some actors in Guatemala’s judiciary are notoriously friendly with the country’s old political elite and have stood in the way of past anti-corruption efforts.

Arévalo, who took office in January, rose to the presidency thanks to a combination of local grassroots and international support. It appears he is seeking to maintain both in the early months of his tenure.

Embassy drama. The Hungarian Embassy in Brasília hosted former President Jair Bolsonaro for two nights last month after Brazilian authorities announced Bolsonaro was under investigation for allegedly plotting a coup, the New York Times reported this week. Bolsonaro’s stay shielded him from arrest and underscored his membership in a global right-wing network that includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Brazilian police have now opened a probe into Bolsonaro’s time at the embassy.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Argentine President Javier Milei accused Venezuela of shutting off the electricity at the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where Milei said his government was sheltering members of the Venezuelan opposition.

By Wednesday, it was the Argentine Embassy in Bogotá that had landed in the headlines. Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered the expulsion of Argentina’s diplomatic corps in the country after Milei called Petro a “terrorist” and “murderer” in an interview, referring to Petro’s membership in a guerrilla group in the 1980s.

Shakira speaks at the “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” album release party in Hollywood, Florida, on March 21.Mireya Acierto/Getty Images

Back in business. Last Friday, Shakira released her first full-length album in seven years, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. The album’s rhythms include regional Mexican music and the bachata heard most famously in the Dominican Republic. Many of the songs on the album process her breakup with her former partner, Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué, including one with the titular line, “Women don’t cry anymore, they cash in.”­

Over her three-decade career, Shakira’s songs have become cultural touchpoints in Colombia and beyond. The “cash in” lyric went viral across Latin America when the song was released as a single last year. Even Petro posted about another of Shakira’s recent singles, which tells the story of a low-paying boss. The Colombian president wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “This is why labor reform is needed.” (Shakira’s team later said they did not authorize the song’s use for partisan politics.)

Shakira has always sought to be “someone with a radar attuned to capture in real time what’s happening in music,” El País’s Carlos Marcos wrote. Over the years, that has included a range of Latin styles, Afrobeat, and music inspired by her Arab heritage. While some critics were underwhelmed by the new album, its range and Shakira’s draw as a performer show why she continues to be a global queen of pop.

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In Focus: Venezuela’s Opposition Shuffle

Manuel Rosales of Venezuela’s Un Nuevo Tiempo party speaks after registering his presidential candidacy in Caracas on March 26.Gaby Oraa/Getty Images

Venezuela’s opposition was forced to shuffle its official leadership this week to clear new obstacles to its participation in the July 28 presidential election.

The deadline for presidential candidates to register was midnight on Monday. Because the winner of Venezuela’s opposition primary, María Corina Machado, remained banned from running, her coalition chose a replacement candidate, Corina Yoris. But Yoris was unable to sign up due to problems with the registration website as the deadline approached.

The ominous technical glitch prompted an outpouring of denunciations, including from Colombia and Brazil, which until now had preferred to keep their criticism of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government private.

Brazil said the situation appeared to break a commitment by Maduro to preserve certain electoral conditions and noted that Yoris had no official ban on her candidacy. Colombia voiced concern and said the events could hurt international evaluations of electoral transparency. Venezuela criticized both statements, alleging undue interference in domestic matters.

Machado’s opposition coalition was able to register a placeholder candidate at the last minute: former diplomat Edmundo González. During the period when it was unclear if González’s registration would be successful, one of the parties in the opposition coalition separately registered its own candidate, Zulia state Gov. Manuel Rosales.

“Find a candidate who can get past the government’s obstacles, and I will turn my candidacy spot over to them,” Rosales said Wednesday.

Venezuela’s opposition coalition seems to have made it past this week’s hurdle, however reconfigured its ranks may be. It remains unclear how long González’s and Rosales’s candidacies will be allowed to survive.