Jun 27 2025| Nº. 172

Editorial

On Wednesday, June 25, Brazil’s Senate approved a controversial proposal to increase the number of federal congressional representatives (deputies) from 513 to 531, triggering a wave of criticism over potential costs that could exceed R$380 million over four years despite last-minute amendments aimed at limiting new spending. The expansion, required by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling to reflect updated census data, avoids cutting seats from any state and instead adds 18 federal deputies and 30 new spots in state legislatures, mostly in Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Rio Grande do Norte. On the same day, a separate political clash unfolded as Finance Minister Fernando Haddad and Minister of Institutional Relations Gleisi Hoffmann came out strongly in defense of a recent presidential decree that raised the Tax on Financial Operations (IOF) after House Speaker Hugo Motta scheduled a vote to overturn it. The tax increase, announced as part of the government’s efforts to fund social programs and close a widening fiscal gap, was framed by supporters as essential to responsible governance. However, it drew backlash from across the political spectrum, with critics arguing it would hurt consumers and investors already strained by inflation and sluggish growth. The unfolding standoff signals a growing rift between Congress and the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over how to stabilize Brazil’s budget without fueling political or economic blowback.

Meanwhile, signaling his likely approach to next year’s presidential race, Lula used a Wednesday event in Brasília to launch fresh criticism of President Donald Trump, urging him to be “less internet, more head of state.” Comparing Trump to ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, Lula warned that global leaders should focus more on peace, multilateralism, and free trade, rather than seeking headlines and social media attention. Regarding the conflict between Israel and Iran, Lula insisted he wants to “stay far away” from war and reaffirmed his commitment to peace. Intriguingly, Lula made a point of noting that his government was not responsive to the far left or to the far right but to the country’s mainstream majority: “We can’t respond to  those on the far right or the far left…We will respond to the middle path, which is always where it is possible to get things done.” While the opposition has yet to settle on a single candidate for the presidency, Lula seems intent on framing whoever it is as a tool of far-right extremists and himself as a moderate voice willing to work with anyone. 

Following Lula’s call for global peace and restraint, his top foreign policy advisor, Celso Amorim, issued a stark warning this week about the state of world affairs. In a televised interview, responding to a recent U.S. attack on Iranian military facilities, Amorim declared: "The world order is over. That’s it—the world order is over. It’s collapsed in the areas of trade, in peace, and security, and we have to adapt to this new reality. It won’t be easy.” His remarks underscore growing alarm within the Lula administration as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East threaten to escalate into a broader conflict.

Highlights

• Absences in the BRICS. The presidents of China, Xi Jinping, and Russia, Vladimir Putin, will not participate in the BRICS summit meeting, on July 6 and 7 in Rio de Janeiro. The absence of the leaders of the two largest powers in the group occurs for different reasons. In Putin's case, the fear of arrest in Brazil weighs heavily because the country is a member state of the Rome Statute, which requires cooperation with the International Criminal Court, an authority that issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president in 2023 for crimes attributed to him in Ukraine.

• Coup plotters in the USA. Paulo Figueiredo, grandson of Brazilian dictator João Baptista Figueiredo, promoted on social media this week his participation in a session of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US Congress. Paulo is one of 34 people indicted in Brazil for participating in a failed coup attempt in 2022/2023 United States. There he is asking President Donald Trump to order an intervention in Brazilian domestic political matters. During the session, Paulo's speech was confronted by Democratic Congressman James P. McGovern, who received information from WBO specialists about the current Brazilian political context and the ongoing lawsuits against the coup plotters.

• Big Tech. Throughout the month of July, Brazil has been following an important debate in the Brazilian Supreme Court about the responsibility of big tech in relation to the publication of posts by its users. Today, article 19 of the Internet Civil Rights Framework requires that content must be removed only after a court order, but the Supreme Court formed a majority to change the rule, obliging companies to take the initiative to remove such content, even without a court order. The president of Google in Brazil said this week that the company may reevaluate its presence in the country based on the requirements that may be imposed by the Supreme Court.

• Retirement queue. The budget constraints led the Lula government to hold back the granting of at least 2 million requests for the retirement of public employees in Brazil until December 2024. Today, Brazil still has 2.6 million requests awaiting analysis. The information is likely to be explored by a National Congress that has been increasingly hostile to the government. One of the risks is that congressional members decide to open a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) under the pretext of investigating irregularities at the National Institute of Social Security (INSS).

News from ABO and social organizations and movements:

BRICS. The Brazil Office is participating in the 3rd Cycle of Discussions “Democracy, Equity and Confronting Authoritarianism”, in the Immersion Workshop “Crisis of Multilateralism and the Paths of the Global South” on July 4 and 5 in Rio de Janeiro. The activity will take place at the Ação da Cidadania Cultural Center in downtown Rio de Janeiro in a parallel event to the BRICS summit.

Trump’s wars. In his latest column in Agência Pública, the president of the WBO Board of Directors, James N. Green, writes about the overlapping conflicts experienced by US President Donald Trump, who faces increasing resistance in American civil society while investing in a bombing of Iran that could have devastating long-term consequences. He notes how engaging in a new conflict divides the U.S. far-right electorate within American domestic politics itself.

Climate justice. The Brazilian Center for Climate Justice (CBJC) in partnership with Art Jovem LGBT, Associação Gold, Casa Dulce, Clima Queer, FONATRANS, LGBT Mais Movimento, Liga Transmasculina, Sapato Preto Amazônida, Secretaria Nacional LGBTQIA+ and Vale PCD, is promoting the online training “Bodies, voices and climate: LGBTQIAPN+ for climate justice”. Selected participants will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge about climate justice, the environment, and the intersectional connections with gender, race and sexuality. Registration will be open from June 25 to July 9, 2025. Classes will be online, starting in July 2025. Click here to participate in the selection process.

Fellows. Jana Silverman, one of the WBO’s associate researchers, published the article “From ‘Union Hot Summer’ to Trumpian Winter: An Analysis of the Current Political and Organizational Dynamics of the American Labor Movement”, in which she analyzes “the current labor union dynamics in the United States, using both qualitative and quantitative indicators, to better understand their ruptures and continuities with the traditions of ‘business unionism’ and ‘social unionism’, typical of American unionism”.

Feature Article

The BRICS and the Escalation of War

By Jorge Branco*

The BRICS countries are at the center of the geopolitical equations of global conflicts. Russia's wars against Ukraine, Israel's colonialist escalation against Palestine and, subsequently, Israel's war against Iran, as well as Trump's tariff measures have impacted international relations. This BRICS Summit meeting, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro on July 6 and 7, 2025, under the presidency of Brazil, will be more than heated.

The previous meeting, in 2024 in Kazan, was marked by the tension suffered by Russia due to the countries of the European Union, NATO and the United States acting strongly to isolate it, commercially and politically. The response of the joint leadership between Russia and China was immediate, with the formal entry into BRICS of other states, such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Iran, in addition to the acceptance of a large and relevant number of countries as partners of the bloc.

This was a very bold move on the international stage, including within the original BRICS bloc. Despite the more conservative positions of Brazil, South Africa and India regarding expansion, the political fact was consummated. A year later, the bloc will arrive at the 2025 Rio de Janeiro Summit with the expansion of its members consolidated and irreversible.

With the advance of reactionary governments ahead of Western countries, especially the United States, the issue of multilateralism takes on new meaning. Obviously, the debate surrounding the crisis of multilateralism and the space for countries in the Global South is not exclusively related to the clash between reactionary and progressive ideas, since there are also reactionary governments in the Global South and within the BRICS bloc itself. But the idea of ​​building a system and governance pacts that guarantee the interests of non-NATO countries involves increasing the economic and political weight of alternative poles to the United States and the European Union. BRICS, with its expansion and the presence of two belligerent countries against NATO allies, Russia and Iran, plays a decisive role due to its characteristic of opposing the Global North.

The great challenge of this BRICS Summit is to adopt a revisionist position regarding the world order. To this end, it will be important to take an assertive position regarding the import tariff war imposed by the Trump administration. Also, however difficult the diplomatic engineering may be, the BRICS Summit may produce a call for a ceasefire and the establishment of negotiations in the ongoing wars, contributing to global disapproval of Israel's colonial invasion of Palestinian lands, as the South African government's initiative has already signaled.

The idea of ​​a new multipolarity where the Global South has a voice involves an explicit challenge to the current system of global governance where a single nuclear power is capable of determining global relations, and where there is no questioning of its colonialist and warmongering order. Issues such as combating poverty, environmental balance, freedom of immigration, fundamental rights, gender equality and ethnic respect will not arise exclusively from discussions within the BRICS, however, affirmative action that questions the current system of governance is a plausible expectation for a discussion of states that are on the periphery of NATO, despite their economic and military power.

This BRICS meeting is decisive in signaling that there is an alternative geopolitical agglutination pole to the United States/NATO bloc and that the issue of multipolarity can preside over the agenda of international relations as a way of obstructing the growth of belligerence, neocolonialism and the increase in poverty.

*Jorge Branco is a sociologist, PhD in Political Science, researcher on the extreme right and advisor to the Instituto Novos Paradigmas.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.