G20: Brazil's Lula highlights world hunger as Trump looms

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed world leaders to Rio de Janeiro on Monday to a G20 summit over which the specter of US President-elect Donald Trump looms large.

With contentious global issues such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, climate change, trade, women's rights and the emergence of China all likely to be dramatically affected by Trump's return to the White House in January, Lula used his opening address to focus on presumed common ground:

"Hunger and poverty are not the result of scarcity or natural phenomena; they are the product of political decisions," he said at Rio's Museum of Modern Art.

"In a world that produces almost 6 billion tons of food per year, this is unacceptable. It is for those of us here, around this table, to face the undelayable task of ending this stain that shames humanity. That will be our biggest legacy."

Lula, a socialist who was born in poverty and first entered politics as the leader of a metalworkers' union, announced the launch of a global alliance to combat poverty and hunger which has the backing of 80 countries, the African Union, the European Union international organizations, development banks and philanthropies such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Biden misses official photo

Outgoing US President Joe Biden arrived in Brazil but inadvertently missed the official G20 photo with other world leaders. Biden wasn’t the only one to miss out on the photo though, with Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italian leader Georgia Meloni also staying, quite literally, out of the picture.

Biden is attempting to uphold his legacy on global poverty before the Trump administration takes over in January.

"President Biden will announce a historic US pledge during the Rio summit and rally other leaders to step up their contributions," Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer told reporters, referring to a planned donation to the World Bank's International Development Association fund that supports the world's poorest countries.

Finer added that Biden would be "highlighting the need for an ambitious replenishment" of the fund but did not name a concrete figure.

Prior to his arrival in Rio, Biden had become the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon rainforest, saying that the United States had hit its target of increasing bilateral climate financing to $11 billion a year.

Center-stage at the G20 is set to be occupied by other world leaders jockeying for position ahead of Trump's inauguration, and consensus on other issues looks likely to be in short supply.

G20: Little consensus on Ukraine …

Biden's reported decision to lift the restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range western weapons against military targets further inside Russia may have been welcomed in Kyiv and some European capitals this week, but countries like China, India and Brazil have not been as strong in their condemnation of Moscow's war of aggression.

"The United States strongly supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Biden. "Everyone around this table in my view should, as well."

But sources told the Reuters news agency that diplomats drafting a joint statement for the summit's leaders were already struggling to maintain a fragile agreement on how to address the escalating Ukraine war, with even a vague call for peace proving difficult given the need to avoid offending any of the participants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most notable absentee at the G20. Deterred by an International Criminal Court warrant that calls on member states to arrest him, he is being represented in Brazil by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

… and even less on the Middle East

Outside on the streets of Rio, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to protest against Israel's operations in Gaza which continue to inflict huge civilian casualties — but a united statement of intent from the G20 on the subject of the Middle East appears unlikely, too.

Brazilian President Lula sparked a diplomatic row earlier this year when he compared Israel's actions in Gaza to the Holocaust. "It's not a war of soldiers against soldiers; it's a war between a highly prepared army and women and children," he said, prompting Israel to declare him a "persona non grata."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said ahead of the summit that Berlin and Brasilia were united in their support of a two-state solution but insisted that "Israel has the right to defend itself" and promised continued German military support.

"Our Israeli partners can count on Germany's solidarity," he told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

Argentina's Milei: Trump's biggest fan

On other issues, the biggest challenge facing hosts Brazil comes from much closer to home, with reports suggesting that negotiators from neighboring Argentina have been leading the challenges to some of the proposed draft's language.

Argentina's right-wing libertarian president Javier Milei, an admirer of Trump, has drawn a red line under Lula's efforts to discuss taxation of the super-rich, while Buenos Aires has also raised objections to lines promoting gender equality and female empowerment.

While Lula received heads of state Monday with smiles and warm embraces, he and Milei stood at arms' length while briefly shaking hands.

China's Xi takes center stage

With Biden on his farewell tour and Putin absent, the central player at the G20 will be Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi is expected to tout China's "Belt and Road" initiative, the signature foreign policy plan that directs Chinese investments to infrastructure projects in the developing world and Global South as a method of gaining global influence.

Brazil has so far declined to join the global infrastructure project, much to the consternation of Beijing, according to Li Xing, professor at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"China was very disappointed," he told Reuters, saying it was a "big blow to relations."

Still, with Xi concluding his trip to Brazil with an official state visit on Wednesday, other potential industrial partnerships remain on the table.

In another sign of Beijing's growing weight in an increasingly multipolar world, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also met with Xi ahead of the summit, the first meeting between British and Chinese leaders since 2018.

"The world is currently entering a new period of turbulence and change," Xi told Starmer, summing up the mood as the G20 kicked off.

mf/msh, jsi (AFP, Reuters, AP)