Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday for the two leaders' first formal meeting, in talks centred on trade tariffs, critical minerals and security cooperation.
Mr Lula is seeking to head off a fresh tariff package linked to a US Section 301 investigation covering Brazil's Pix instant-payments system, ethanol-trade barriers and what Washington describes as inadequate enforcement against illegal deforestation in the Amazon. The investigation's final report is due in July.
Mr Trump told reporters the meeting "went very well" and that the two governments had discussed tariffs, trade and access to Brazilian rare-earth deposits. The White House said no specific tariff suspension or trade deal was signed at the meeting.
The trip comes during a difficult domestic period for Mr Lula. The lower house of Congress last week overrode his veto of a measure reducing the prison sentence of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and the Senate rejected his Supreme Court nominee — the first such rejection in more than a century.
Mr Lula on Monday signed the Desenrola 2.0 debt-renegotiation programme to ease consumer indebtedness, with the Selic policy rate at 15 per cent and 8.9 million corporate tax registrations in default, according to credit agency Serasa.
AtlasIntel polling shows Senator Flávio Bolsonaro at 47.5 per cent against the president's 47.8 per cent in a hypothetical 2026 second-round contest. Mr Lula has hinted he will seek re-election but has not formally launched a campaign.