Brazil doesn’t want ‘new Cold War’, Lula says before Trump meeting

By Saurabh Sharma

NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Brazil does not want a “new Cold War”, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sunday, urging the Trump administration to treat all countries equally ahead of a trip to meet the U.S. president.

“I want to tell U.S. President Donald Trump that we don’t want a new Cold War,” Lula told a press conference in New Delhi at the end of a three-day trip to India. “We don’t want to interfere in any other country, we want all countries to be treated equally.”

Lula, who has said he expects to meet Trump in Washington in the first week of March, said his agenda would include trade, immigration, investment and partnership between universities.

The leftist South American leader has differed with Trump on issues from the Republican president’s tariffs to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan President Maduro and Trump’s Board of Peace.

Lula declined to comment on Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down many of Trump’s tariffs on global goods entering the U.S., which Trump then said would be replaced by 15% levies under a different law.

But, Lula said, “I think relations between the U.S. and Brazil will be in a better position.”

(Reporting by Saurabh Sharma; Writing by Arpan Chaturvedi; Editing by William Mallard)