Address by Minister Mauro Vieira on the occasion of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation Award – Rio de Janeiro, February 7, 2025

I would like to begin my first words by thanking Getúlio Vargas Foundation, represented by Professor Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal – its president –, for the award with which I am honored today, especially as it is the first award to be granted.

I receive this award – first and foremost – as a recognition of the excellence of the institution to which I have had the pleasure and honor of serving for over 50 years: the Itamaraty.

It is with great pleasure that I come to speak about the foreign policy of President Lula's administration at this Foundation that bears – in its very name – the mark of nationalism in this country.

It was during the Vargas administration, with its sense of institutional construction of the Brazilian State, that this Foundation (in 1944) and the Brazilian diplomatic academy, the Rio Branco Institute (in 1945) were established almost simultaneously.

The celebrations of the 80th anniversary of FGV – in December of last year – and of the Rio Branco Institute – now in April 2025 – provide a special backdrop to today’s occasion, evoking the lasting contribution of Vargas nationalism to Brazilian history.

It would be unnecessary to list the many contributions of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation to the knowledge, memory and debate on Brazil’s international relations.

But I must also express my gratitude to the students of the Foundation who volunteered their work at the G20 summit, held here in Rio on November 18 and 19 of last year.

By showing the G20 members the face and capacity of our youth, they helped build the success of Brazil’s presidency of the group and of the summit itself.

The world order may have once seemed like a distant concept for Brazilian students; today, those volunteers at the G20 have seen with their own eyes that shaping the world’s future also depends on Brazil.

However, with the critical spirit that this Foundation instills, the students may also be reflecting with concern on the future of the world.

They may be wondering whether that world order still exists – or to what extent it exists.

They may – in the end – be asking themselves whether the most appropriate concept to understand the contemporary world is that of order or disorder.

I would like to take advantage of the honorable opportunity that the Getúlio Vargas Foundation provides me today to seek to understand the contours of this issue  and present to you a Brazilian perspective of the international scenario.

Professor Simonsen,

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are witnessing fractures of all kinds: hunger, poverty and inequality; armed conflicts with catastrophic humanitarian consequences; global warming as a present and grim reality.

We are witnessing the conflagration of political life through radicalization and disinformation, with an adverse impact on democratic coexistence accross various latitudes and longitudes.

We are observing the weakening – and sometimes the failure – of international institutions created to channel, contain and solve conflicts between States.

It is necessary to reflect on the origins of this crisis.

The order built after World War II was based on two great promises: a collective security system centered on the United Nations; and an ideal of prosperity through the integration of world trade based on rules and predictability.

With the consolidation of international security and trade regimes in the post-Cold War period, their limits also became clear.

This order created stability and prosperity, but it was unable to  distribute them fairly across different regions of the world or even within each society.

Instability and poverty have been aggravated by many other factors, among which I would like to highlight only the consequences of high-carbon development models for the climate.

As President Lula has often highlighted since his first term, the promises of that order were accompanied by its injustices.

The worsening of inequalities worldwide, in all areas – social, economic, military, etc. – has given rise to different reactions in the current stage.

On the one hand, it gives rise to the cause of reforming the world order, of which Brazil has long been an advocate.

But it also gives rise to the temptation to dismantle the order, often in the places where it was conceived and where it  benefited the most.

Recent news in the trade field – with the profusion of protectionist measures and unilateral intimidation through tariffs – highlights this process.

We are facing the concrete consequences of the prolonged crisis of the World Trade Organization and the paralysis of its dispute settlement system.

And certain types of bilateral, trilateral and plurilateral free trade arrangements – persistently touted as an alternative to multilateral progress in the area of trade – have not proven to be a better option in terms of predictability.

On the contrary: they may further expose some of their signatories to vulnerability.

By outlining this picture in the area of trade, I intend only to illustrate a broader trend.

The specter of the law of the strongest casts a shadow over the order – or threatens to turn it into disorder.

There are even shocking examples of this, such as the recently raised proposal to exile the entire population of Gaza in violation of the most basic principles of international law, painstakingly consolidated over the last 80 years.

The defense of the two-state solution is even more important at this time when, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations recently stated, we must not make the Gaza problem worse by trying to solve it.

As Secretary-General António Guterres said – and I quote –: “It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”

Ladies and gentlemen,

The lack of regulation and the primacy of force do not benefit either Brazil or the world.

The world order must be upheld and reformed – in a word, the order must be reinvented.

In January 2023, President Lula began his unprecedented third term determined to put an end to the greatest dismantling of Brazil's international credibility and to place the country back at the center of debates on the world order.

Having the honor of being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in his administration – as I had previously been in President Dilma Rousseff’s administration – I sought from the very beginning to carry out his instructions to bring Brazil back into the world.

If the world we found ourselves in was profoundly changed in relation to that of twenty years earlier – when President Lula first took office –, the ideals and principles that his government upholds have not changed.

The Brazilian G20 presidency, which ran from December 2023 to November 2024, was a privileged opportunity to directly address this challenge of rethinking the order based on Brazilian values.

As the leader of the group of the world's largest economies, we sought to directly address the systemic aspect of inequalities.

In his address at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, in September 2023, President Lula said: “if the G20 wants to make a difference, it will have to place the reduction of inequalities at the center of its agenda and of the international agenda.”

That is what we sought to do by including – on the group's agenda – the Brazilian vision of building a fair world and a sustainable planet.

The priorities of our G20 presidency were:  (i) social inclusion and the fight against hunger and poverty; (ii) the reform of global governance institutions; and (iii) energy transitions and sustainable development.

In the fight against income inequality and access to food security, the main outcome of the Brazilian presidency was the launch of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.

Launched during the Rio Summit, the Global Alliance had the support of more than 160 founding members, including countries, international organizations and private entities.

The Global Alliance has three pillars: the national pillar, focused on the commitment of countries to adopt proven policies to fight  hunger and poverty; the financial pillar, which aims to identify and mobilize resources to support countries; and the knowledge pillar, which facilitates the exchange of experiences and technical assistance.

The purpose of the Global Alliance is to give greater prominence to countries receiving cooperation by identifying their own priorities and choosing the programs that they understand to be most appropriate to their national contexts.

In fact, we are translating into the global level the concept that has always guided Brazil in its international cooperation agenda, with the importance given to successful experiences emerging from the world’s southern hemisphere.

The  Brazilian G20 presidency also focused on the  reform of global governance.

On this topic, allow me to quote the warning made by President Lula in his opening speech at the United Nations General Assembly in 2024: “We cannot wait for a new global tragedy, such as the Second World War, to the build a new architecture of global governance upon its ruins.”

The Brazilian presidency managed to adopt by consensus a “Call to Action” with the broad outlines of this new architecture.

The “Call to Action” deals with the reforms of the United Nations, the international financial architecture and the multilateral trading system.

Among its main points, the following stand out: the call for the reform of the Security Council, aiming to adapt it to the reality and demands of the 21st century; the defense of a fair international tax system, with fiscal transparency and taxation of the ultra-wealthy; and the commitment to a multilateral trade system centered on the World Trade Organization.

Most of the above language was incorporated into the declaration of the G20 leaders in Rio de Janeiro, consolidating the issue definitively on the group’s agenda.

The third and final axis of the Brazilian G20 presidency was the mobilization of the world’s largest economies in favor of actions against climate change.

In this regard, I highlight the Climate Task Force, through which the G20 assumed a leadership commitment towards structural changes in national economies and the international financial system.

The Task Force approved a common agenda for the world's 20 largest economies with the aim of maintaining the viability of the 1.5C cap on global temperature rise, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

It also sought to promote the legacy of COP28 in Dubai, with an unprecedented call for countries to bring forward climate neutrality schedules and to present ambitious nationally determined contributions (the so-called NDCs) at COP-30 in Belém do Pará.

In the current context of questioning science and the need to implement the Paris commitments, these results become even more relevant.

In the debates on sustainable development at the Rio de Janeiro Summit, Brazil launched the idea of creating a United Nations Climate Change Council.

Still in the conceptual discussions stage, this proposal could provide the United Nations with its own forum to solve the problem, while avoiding the tendency towards “securitization” of the climate agenda.

The Brazilian G20 presidency also addressed the important issue of biodiversity and the need to restore ecosystems.

In this context, Brazil announced, on the sidelines of COP28, the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (the so-called TFFF), to economically value standing forests.

The Fund, to be launched at COP-30 in Belém do Pará, will be an innovative financial mechanism that should reward developing countries for the conservation and restoration of their tropical forests.

In addition to the work on the three axes mentioned – the Global Alliance, governance reform and sustainable development –, the Brazilian G20 presidency was marked by an important initiative in the area of gender.

We created the G20 Working Group for the Empowerment of Women, which, established at the end of 2023, still under the Indian presidency, began its work under the Brazilian term, under the leadership of the Ministry of Women and with the support of the Itamaraty.

The debates of the Women's Empowerment Working Group focused on the themes of climate justice, economic autonomy related to care policies, and combating misogyny and gender-based violence on social media.

With the recent rise in restrictive perspectives on the notion of gender, as well as issues related to diversity and inclusion, the strengthening of the women's empowerment agenda at the G20 is particularly significant.

Ladies and gentlemen,

One effect of the resistance to the reform of international decision-making bodies – such as the United Nations Security Council – is the appreciation of informal and flexible groups of consultation such as the G20 itself.

In contrast to formal bodies – more entrenched in the inconsistency of their composition –, the G20 better reflects the transition of polarities that we are witnessing.

In its flexible format, the G20 brings together developed and developing countries, traditional and emerging powers, the G7 and the BRICS.

Although it is not legally binding, the G20 agenda relies precisely on the fact that it is supported by the broadest possible consensus among the actors whose contributions are essential for any future form of global order.

It is no coincidence that the G20 – accounting for 69% of the world's population and 85% of the world's GDP – has now become the forum best placed to make decisions with international impact.

The “international community” is no longer limited to the voices of a few countries.

Nor do the new voices accept purely imaginary limits on what they can and cannot discuss in global politics, as demonstrated by the Common Understandings between China and Brazil on the Political Resolution of the Crisis in Ukraine.

With this initiative, Brazil shows that it will not limit itself to being a mere spectator of major international crises.

It is a country willing to contribute to negotiated and sustainable solutions towards world peace – in line with the constitutional principles of defending peace and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

As the world reorganizes itself around two and possibly three or more poles of power, the contribution of the political South of the globe is becoming inevitable.

The multipolar world is not only an incipient reality; it is also the objective of a foreign policy that seeks, by rebalancing global power, a firmer support for the order.

Updating the distribution of global power therefore serves the purpose of preserving the valuable elements of the world order and reforming its deficiencies – and, in any case, of preventing its fragmentation.

That is why, in BRICS, we seek to be a positive force for the transformation of international relations.

No notion of order can be built today without hearing the voice of BRICS, the group that best represents the aspirations of the developing world.

The recent expansion of BRICS from five to eleven members at the Johannesburg II summit was one of the most significant events in international politics in recent years.

With approximately half of the world's population and 39% of global GDP, the group is responsible for about half of the world's energy production.

The expanded BRICS holds the promise of a South with real influence on the redesign of the international order.

Since the Kazan summit, BRICS has also had a new category of partner countries.

The next BRICS summit, in July in Brazil, will be the first time the group will meet in its new composition.

Brazil assumed the presidency of BRICS in January 2025, determined to offer solutions in the areas where the world needs them most.

We have chosen cooperation in global health as a priority, in favor of strengthening international and regional mechanisms and of eliminating socially determined diseases and neglected tropical diseases.

In this way, we will continue to seek to strengthen the global health system in an area where it has historically failed to meet the specific needs of the populations of the developing world.

In the area of trade, we will work to improve the international monetary and financial system in order to ensure that it is more representative and that it meets the needs of all nations.

We will also reamain committed to develop local payment instruments that facilitate intra-bloc trade and investment, similar to the experience already implemented among members, such as  the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI) with the Reciprocal Payments and Credits Agreement (CCR).

What is being examined here are measures in favor of developing countries.

As I always say, BRICS does not have a negative side: it works in favor of  cooperation and development of its members – and not against anyone.

And it is in this spirit that we will conduct the group's work this year.

On this occasion, BRICS will pay special attention to the issue of climate change.

We will promote the BRICS Climate Leadership Agenda, providing political and practical solutions to increase efforts to avoid exceeding the critical limit, as I have already mentioned, of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Although we do not bear historical responsibility for the crisis confronting us, we cannot exempt ourselves from this defining issue of our time, which is under attack.

We are working hard to coordinate the positions of blocs and regions with a view to COP-30, and not only within BRICS.

Another example is the summit of Amazonian countries in June 2023, which gave the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) new mandates for decisive action in favor of the Amazon biome and its peoples.

With the Caribbean countries, the resumption of our dialogue also depends largely on the concern for the climate crisis, which will be one of the themes of the Brazil-Caribbean summit next June in Brasília, with our partners showing a great interest in agreeing positions for COP-30.

From the Caribbean to the Amazon, and from the G20 to the BRICS, Brazil will make every effort to seek sustainable development.

This is what a world of fluid polarities demands: taking responsibility for defending our ideals and acting to coordinate the many regions and various blocs necessary to forge solid consensus.

The same applies to  our democratic ideals.

We coordinate on democracy in more than one trans-regional forum.

One of them is IBSA, a group bringing together three major developing, multicultural and multiethnic democracies of the Global South: India, Brazil and South Africa.

With IBSA, Brazil is working to ensure that global reconfiguration strengthens democratic values in the developing world.

At the same time, we do not neglect dialogue and cooperation with our democratic partners in the Global North.

With the recent conclusion of negotiations on the Mercosur-European Union agreement, these two important regions – with no less than 700 million people – stand to gain not only in terms of trade between them.

We can cooperate closely to increase the autonomy – including strategic autonomy – of each bloc, considering the economies of scale inherent in the agreement.

We can and should collaborate on an autonomous international path that contributes to a stable multipolar order.

Above all, we can and should strengthen a partnership between Mercosur and the European Union based on the values of democracy and human rights.

This coming Monday, I will take part in the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence in Paris, where I will emphasize the importance for Brazil of protecting democratic institutions in the digital environment.

Brazil will work resolutely to ensure that artificial intelligence governance standars are defined multilaterally at the United Nations, in an open, equitable and inclusive dialogue, respecting the needs and priorities of each country.

Ladies and gentlemen,

With the erosion of order and the temptation of disorder, the world is going through an era of heightened unpredictability.

Now more than ever, it is necessary to reflect on Brazil's basic coordinates in the world, seeking to understand our geographic circumstances and our historical specificities.

The Southern Hemisphere is not just a map for Brazil – it is the natural space of our greatness as a nation.

I would like to highlight here Resolution 41/11, from 1986, of the United Nations General Assembly, which established the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic, bringing together the countries on the eastern coastline of South America and the western coastline of Africa.

The text particularly urges militarily armed and important states not to introduce in the South Atlantic "rivalries and conflicts that are foreign to it."

The same logic guides us in dealing with our South American neighbors – in particular – and Latin American neighbors – in general, successive areas of regional integration established as a principle of the Federal Constitution.

I would like to once again recall President Lula's words at the last General Assembly, noting that disputes in the neighborhood are "often foreign to the region."

Beyond its surroundings, Brazil, with its universalist vocation, projects itself into all corners of the globe.

In all regions and with all partners, we are ready to engage in dialogue, to seek opportunities for our development and to contribute to peace.

This diversity – of quadrants, interlocutors, hemispheres and partners – is part of Brazil's great diplomatic heritage.

When we say diversity, we also mean diversification.

The search for autonomy and a critical view of unequal treaties dates back to the first decades of our life as an independent country, still under the Empire.

Over time, the principle of national independence became part of the Brazilian diplomatic tradition, having been duly embraced in Article 4 of the Constitution.

The patron of national diplomacy himself, José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, the Baron of Rio Branco, was a leader in this matter.

In a writing in the final years of his life, he affirms Brazil's goodwill to engage with the great powers, while warning: "We do not, however, understand unconditional friendship, especially with the powerful." The remarkable example of Baron of Rio Branco, patron of the Itamaraty, would be repeated in many other moments marked by the non-alignment policy, such as the Independent Foreign Policy of San Tiago Dantas and the Ecumenical and Responsible Pragmatism of Azeredo da Silveira.

This example is all the more relevant as the international panorama cebomes more uncertain.

Ready-made solutions and automatic alignments – dictated by whatever quadrant – do not serve the foreign policy of a country as great as Brazil.

This was, in fact, the tlesson of the very patron of this Foundation, in his renowned nationalist pragmatism.

In the face of the uncertainties of today's world, we will not deviate from this line.

We will use the main forums  for global political dialogue – often held in Brazil, from the G20 to the BRICS and COP-30 – to resolutely defend our vision.

We will not succumb to the anxiety driven by the dizzying pace of real-time media and social networks.

Nor will we be swayed by immediacy in responding to the challenges that arise.

We will continue to be guided by a calm, sober and pragmatic diplomatic style.

Brazil, a great democracy of the Global South – universalist in its capacity for dialogue and in the diversification of its partnerships – will remain faithful to the autonomist principle taught by tradition and commanded by the Constitution.

Instead of the primacy of force, we will uphold the virtue of a world in balance: safe, fair and sustainable.

This is how we intend to navigate global disorder and reinvent an order compatible with the national interest.

And once again I express my desire to strengthen this partnership with FGV, in the context of the Brazil’s BRICS presidency and the hosting of COP30.

Thank you.