In His New Book, Obama Takes Revenge for Lula’s Lack of Reciprocity

It is more or less like that poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Bill Clinton loved Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who did not like George W. Bush, who got along very well with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was well received by Barack Obama, but did not return the affection. Now the former U.S. president has taken revenge.

Obama has just released his first memoir reflecting on his time in the White House. He recalls the famous phrase with which he toasted the then president of Brazil at a G-20 meeting; pointing to Lula, he said, “That’s my man.”

As one of the countries that emerged best from the 2008 global economic crisis, Brazil was in fashion in 2009 — with a new middle class on the rise, unemployment at some of the lowest levels ever, and Bolsa Família surprising the world. But Lula, who came from a very good relationship with former U.S. president George W. Bush, did not respond to Obama’s affection.

The Brazilian president focused our foreign policy on getting closer to China and Russia, strengthening blocs like BRICS and Mercosur, and opening new markets with countries other than the United States. In addition, he strongly adhered to the climate policy of international control of the greenhouse effect, against the interests of U.S. business sectors.

Now Obama has taken his revenge: He stamped it on the book and on the world stage, for posterity, that at that time there were “rumors” that Lula might be a kind of big boss of a Brazilian political mafia that moved “billions.” According to him, a mafia similar to the one that dominated the Democratic Party in New York for 200 years until the middle of the last century.

Obama, however, did not explain these “rumors” in the book. It seemed to be information that he would have received from his country’s intelligence services. After all, later in the Dilma Rousseff administration, Edward Snowden, the former agent of the U.S. National Security Agency, came out to publicly denounce a U.S. espionage scheme against world leaders, including Brazil.

Whether Obama knew or not of the cases that later resulted in Operation Car Wash, he did not address it in the book. But to this day, PT supporters suspect that Sergio Moro and Companhia were fueled by American investigations.