In Brazil, Xi Jinping cultivates a friend as he braces for Trump

The populist leftist shares Xi’s goals of checking America’s global economic dominance. When the two met here this week at a gathering of the Group of 20 largest economies, da Silva grabbed the strongman Chinese leader to pull him in for a hug.

The warmth in the relationship—the two are also meeting one on one Wednesday in Brasília—is grounded in the two countries’ mutual economic needs.

The resource-hungry Chinese economy depends on Brazilian iron ore, soybeans, beef, oil and other commodities to the point where Brazil is the rare country with a trade surplus with China, its biggest trading partner. Brazil in turn has an appetite for a variety of Chinese semiconductors, fertilizers, steel and auto parts, chemicals and vehicles.

China’s ties to Brazil—with the largest economy in Latin America—could help Beijing offset the blow from Trump tariffs to its already-struggling economy. The links also showcase how alternative trade routes can circumvent the U.S. For example, China could amp up imports of soybeans from Brazil and limit its intake from U.S. farmers in a trade fight.

While leaders are concerned that Trump’s policies could disrupt trade flows globally, Xi and da Silva, who is often known as Lula, are just as intent on keeping goods moving.

“There is little the U.S. can do at this juncture to reverse that trend," said Margaret Myers, who follows China’s relationship with Latin America at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. Others echoed the view.

During Trump’s previous trade war, China increased agricultural imports from Brazil while slowing them from the U.S. “The China-Brazil relationship is deeply rooted and will not change because of a change in the U.S. presidency," said Jiang Shixue, a professor and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University.

Personal stakes

Xi and da Silva have personal stakes in demonstrating solidarity with each other. Da Silva has made China a priority in each of his three terms as Brazil’s president. Each leader benefits from treating the other as a reliable partner.

After da Silva returned to the presidency last year, succeeding the Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, he made China his first stop outside the Americas. Xi’s visit this week is his third to Brazil as Chinese leader.

“There’s a natural affinity in how Brazil, especially Lula, and China look at the world," said Jason Marczak, a Latin America specialist at the Atlantic Council in Washington. Brazil wants “a diversification of partners," and in the age of Trump, China needs alternatives to the U.S., he said.

When Xi welcomed da Silva to Beijing in April last year, a military band played a favorite Brazilian song, “A New Era," by the Rio-born musician Ivan Lins, reducing part of the Brazilian delegation to tears. Da Silva strode proudly on the red carpet, exchanging smiles with his Chinese counterpart, before vowing to boost trade ties.

“I wouldn’t underestimate the chemistry between Xi and Lula," said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As da Silva put it this year, “Brazil-China ties are increasingly important for building the multipolar order."

A concern for Musk

In Rio, China’s footprint on Brazil’s economy was illustrated by a multifloor digital screen facing the Copacabana-area hotel where President Biden was staying for the Group of 20 meeting. It displayed a sequence of Chinese advertisements from the likes of the vehicle maker BYD, the oil producer Cnooc, the chemical giant Sinopec, the electric utility State Grid, and Huawei Technologies.

At their meetings, Xi and da Silva are expected to announce that Brazil will allow China to launch low-orbit communication satellites from its geographically well-situated Alcântara Space Center. That could spur Beijing in the emerging space race with the U.S. and give da Silva new options for guiding communications over Brazil’s vast territory, including the Amazon.

The leaders are separately expected to discuss BYD’s recent takeover of a former Ford Motor plant, the first car-manufacturing foothold in the Americas for the highly competitive electric-vehicle maker

Both projects could be a concern to Trump’s billionaire backer Elon Musk, who runs the world’s largest low-orbit satellite system, SpaceX’s Starlink, and the electric-car maker Tesla.

Moscow echoes

Xi and da Silva decry the dollar’s dominance in global dealings, and have supported efforts among fellow members of the Brics grouping that also includes Russia, India and South Africa to use other units of trade and maybe create one.

China has made inroads in numerous nations for its yuan in settling international trade, and several experiments with digital currencies are ongoing. But they are small-scale, and knocking the dollar off its perch as a viable reserve currency is a much taller order.

The deepening Xi-da Silva partnership carries echoes of Xi’s “bromance" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Xi has called Putin his best friend and sought to undermine Western efforts to isolate Moscow after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The analogy goes only so far. China’s nearly $18 trillion gross domestic product, roughly eight times as large as the respective economies of Brazil and Russia, makes it the larger partner by far in both relationships. But da Silva is less beholden to China than Putin, who as a global pariah needs Beijing.

The da Silva-Xi relationship is based on business more than geopolitics, and therefore less of a snub to the U.S. and other Western powers than Xi’s interaction with Putin. China’s demand for commodities alone means “Brazil has a lot more bargaining power than Russia," said Leolino Dourado, a researcher at Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru.

Managing Trump

When push comes to shove, da Silva’s democratic nation is more aligned with Washington, a relationship he still needs to manage; Biden and da Silva had a working lunch in the midst of the G-20 hubbub. Unlike Xi, who strives to replace the postwar institutions led by the U.S., da Silva looks more at restructuring the existing ones to give nations such as Brazil more of a say.

Over a week, Xi’s swing through Latin America, including his inauguration of a huge port in Peru, underlined China’s growing impact in the region. It overshadowed what was Biden’s first visit to South America as president—one seen in the region as too late.

China figured that da Silva’s signature on a deal for Brazil to join China’s Belt and Road program, an invitation much of Latin America has accepted, would be the capstone to a week of Chinese wins in the region.

But only days before the summit, da Silva threw cold water on such hopes.

U.S. officials had publicly warned Brazil to think through the implications of joining China’s infrastructure initiative, viewing it as an infrastructure for influence arrangement. In the end, da Silva’s chief foreign-policy adviser said Brazil’s hesitancy reflects issues of “synergy"—a reminder that the region’s economic powerhouse has no intention of becoming a client state of Beijing.

Brazil’s relationship with China is unlikely to be on Trump’s radar screen immediately. His primary regional focus will be Mexico. “It’s tough to say how much Trump is going to care about Brazil," said Berg, who said Washington tends to treat Brazil like “an optional relationship."

One person who is watching is Musk. At a G-20 event over the weekend, da Silva’s wife, Janja Lula da Silva, insulted him with profanity while urging regulation of social media. Musk shot back on X that da Silva will “lose the next election."

Clarence Leong contributed to this article.