In Latin America, Brazil Is Missing in Action
Brazil once aspired to be South America’s natural leader. Today, despite renewed global visibility under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the country’s regional presence has quietly diminished. In Latin America, Brazil is no longer a protagonist. Instead, it is retreating into the background, leaving a vacuum that others are increasingly eager to fill.
A pivotal opportunity to reverse this trend is approaching. In 2025, Brazil will host the United Nations COP30 Climate Change Conference in Belem, which Lula hopes to use as a platform to reassert Brazil’s leadership not only globally, but also regionally. With the start of a new electoral cycle in 2026 signaling political uncertainty ahead at home, COP30 may be Lula’s last major chance to reconnect Brazil with its neighbors in a meaningful way. It will be crucial for Brazil to ensure the high-profile summit yields more concrete commitments than the underwhelming final declaration from Brazil’s recent rotating presidency of the G20, which ended in November 2024, and recent summits of the Mercosur trade bloc of Southern Cone nations.
Lula’s return to power in January 2023 was met with high expectations, both inside and outside Brazil. After four years of erratic and isolationist foreign policy under former President Jair Bolsonaro, Lula promised a return to multilateralism, regional integration and South-South cooperation. His first year in office saw ambitious gestures: renewed participation in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, founded in 2010 to promote regional dialogue; proposals to revitalize the Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, launched in 2008 during Lula’s first stint as president to advance political and economic coordination; and symbolic visits to Argentina and Uruguay. Brazil also assumed the G20 rotating presidency in late 2023 and launched preparations for COP30, positioning itself once again as a central voice in climate diplomacy.
But while these efforts have put Brazil back in the global spotlight, in South America they have rung hollow, in part because Lula has not followed through on his rhetoric of leadership with impactful policies. On Venezuela, for instance, Brazil has adopted a cautious approach, refraining from playing a meaningful role in mediating the country’s ongoing political and humanitarian crisis. Instead, Lula has sought to normalize relations with the government of President Nicolas Maduro, focusing on trade and energy integration. But this stance has been criticized as tone-deaf to human rights concerns and regional democratic norms, while leaving a diplomatic void that Colombia and Mexico have attempted to fill, each with its own approach.
Brazil’s attempt to draw closer to Colombia under President Gustavo Petro, with whom Lula shares ideological affinities, has also yielded limited results. The two leftist leaders have emphasized bilateral cooperation on environmental and regional issues, but the relationship has faced friction, as well as political headwinds in Bogota. Petro, who also has ambitions to act as a regional leader, has been weakened at home by his struggles to consolidate control over the executive branch and inability to implement key domestic reforms. This has complicated Brazil’s effort to partner with Colombia in articulating joint strategies for protection of the Amazon rainforest, peace-building and regional integration.
On the world stage, Brazil seeks to be seen as a champion of multipolarity and development. Yet its silence in its own neighborhood undermines this narrative.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s relationship with Argentina under far-right libertarian President Javier Milei remains politically tense but economically intertwined. Milei has attacked Lula personally and boycotted summits, but trade between the two countries continues and institutional ties within Mercosur endure. But while the bloc, founded in 1991 to promote regional trade integration among Southern Cone nations, remains a central economic framework, its political coordination is weaker than in the past.
More broadly, Brazil has shown limited initiative in strengthening or redesigning Mercosur and other regional organizations. CELAC and UNASUR remain adrift, with weak institutionalization and fragmented political will. While Lula has expressed rhetorical support for both, Brazil has not offered sustained leadership to make them effective. A clear example came in May 2023, when Brazil hosted a summit of South American presidents to discuss regional integration: The meeting ended without concrete commitments, highlighting Brazil’s inability to formulate a mutually acceptable shared agenda.
This absence has not gone unnoticed, and already other leaders have begun to try to fill the vacuum. In parts of Central America and the Caribbean, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has emerged as a regional pole of symbolic influence, particularly among younger audiences and digital elites. In addition to representing a model of open alignment with the United States, Bukele is perceived regionally as a success for his rare ability as an incumbent to retain public approval, in large part because he has reined in crime and insecurity, though that has come at the cost of trampled civil liberties and democratic erosion.
In the Andes, Petro has taken high-profile stances on climate diplomacy and peace processes, positioning himself as a voice of moral authority, despite his political constraints. Even Mexico, traditionally more focused on North America, expanded its outreach to Central America and the Caribbean under former President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. And his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has demonstrated a deft touch in managing relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, positioning her to play a leadership role in the regional response to Trump’s trade and immigration agenda.
None of these actors can replace Brazil, but their growing prominence underscores Lula’s lack of active regional leadership.
Domestically, several factors help explain Brazil’s regional withdrawal. The country is deeply polarized and inwardly focused, as Lula navigates a fragmented Congress, tense civil-military relations and a decline in popular approval. According to a recent Quaest poll, 43 percent of Brazilians now view Lula’s administration negatively, while only 26 percent express a positive opinion—the lowest approval level of his current mandate. Moreover, Itamaraty, as the country’s Foreign Ministry is known, is understaffed and under-resourced. Many ambassadors appointed during Bolsonaro’s term remain in place, limiting Lula’s ability to steer diplomacy decisively. And in the face of Brazil’s economic slowdown and pressing social demands, costly foreign policy ventures have become politically unattractive.
This inward turn stands in sharp contrast to Brazil’s global ambitions. Lula has worked to rebuild ties with the African Union, expand BRICS and offer Brazil’s services as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war, all while holding the G20 presidency and preparing for COP30 in Belem. On the world stage, Brazil seeks to be seen as a champion of multipolarity and development. Yet its silence in its own neighborhood undermines this narrative. A country that aspires to speak for the Global South must first be able to lead in its immediate region.
There are signs that Lula is aware of this contradiction. Recent efforts to re-engage with Bolivia, which is experiencing political upheaval in the run-up to a deeply divisive presidential election, and the decision to back regional energy corridors suggest a desire to regain some influence. But as Latin America becomes more multipolar and contested, regional leadership cannot be improvised or sporadic. It requires consistency, vision and presence.
Brazil’s quiet exit from regional leadership can still be reversed, but doing so will demand more than speeches and summits. It will require reimagining Brazil’s role as a neighbor—and delivering on it before the clock runs out. The COP30 summit in Belem offers one last chance to articulate that vision with clarity and conviction. Possible initiatives Lula could push for at the summit include a regional pact for sustainable development in the Amazon, a joint strategy to combat environmental crime and a regional protocol to protect Indigenous peoples, especially those who have never or only recently had contact with outside populations.
With Brazil set to enter another presidential election cycle in 2026, political attention will soon shift even more inward. Lula, who has expressed interest in seeking reelection, will increasingly focus on domestic challenges and electoral strategy, reducing the space and urgency for regional diplomacy.
But time is running out, and if Brazil cannot reclaim regional influence in its own neighborhood, it may be left watching others fill the void.
Sylvia Colombo is a journalist, author and historian specialized in Latin America. She is currently a columnist for Folha de S.Paulo.