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Brazil presidential debate zeroes in on Chinese investment and US tariffs
‘What matters to Lulism is that we keep buying the finished product from China while we sell ore or sell our grain’: candidate Renan Santos
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Igor Patrickin São Paulo
Brazil’s presidential candidates opened the televised campaign season on Sunday with a debate that turned repeatedly to the country’s position between Washington and Beijing.
The exchange comes in an election cycle already shaped by American tariffs, a visa dispute over election monitoring and the Lula government’s warming ties with China.
Ronaldo Caiado, Augusto Cury and Renan Santos took to the debate stage in Sao Paulo but the lecterns reserved for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and former Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema remained empty.
Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro, who are leading in every published poll, refused to take part, with the Brazilian president telling a podcast in July he would skip debates if the exercise meant listening to nonsense.
Flavio Bolsonaro has tied his attendance to Lula’s, and Zema withdrew hours beforehand, saying the event had “lost its purpose”.
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