Story
Nov 15, 2026
Lula’s Manila visit joins trade ambitions to a wider call for peace
Brazil portrays Lula’s Philippines visit as a strategic push into Asia built around trade, technology and South-South cooperation, while a separate account underscores the same shared agenda but notes that broader areas of collaboration were discussed without detailed new agreements.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. used Lula’s Manila visit to frame an 80-year diplomatic relationship as a platform for closer economic and political cooperation. Both accounts agree that the trip — the first to the Philippines by a Brazilian head of state — produced memorandums on agriculture and livestock, and on enforcement of competition law.1
The Brazilian left-leaning account casts the agreements as part of a broader strategic turn toward Asia. It says Lula wants to diversify commercial partners, deepen technological cooperation and connect the two countries’ value chains in critical minerals, semiconductors and microelectronics. Bilateral trade has nearly quadrupled over two decades and is approaching $3 billion, according to the report; Lula said Brazil wants to add value to its exports while buying more Philippine-made goods.1
That account also presents the visit as a South-South political partnership. Lula said the countries reject “the senselessness of wars” and support more representative multilateral institutions, while identifying food security, responsible artificial intelligence, climate action and poverty reduction as shared priorities.1 He offered Brazilian experience in clean-energy generation and biofuels as the Philippines seeks to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.1
The right-leaning account reports the same peace and international-law message, as well as the two signed memorandums, but places greater emphasis on what remains undefined. Marcos listed defence, trade and investment, agriculture, energy, science, technology and technical cooperation among potential fields, “though without giving details of concrete agreements.”2
It also notes that the new measures build on a 2022 defence-cooperation memorandum. Marcos called the visit “historic” and said he was confident the countries would forge closer cooperation; Lula described the Philippines as Brazil’s oldest partner in Southeast Asia and said the meeting opened “a new chapter” in bilateral relations.2 Lula was due to attend the ASEAN summit as a guest of the Philippine presidency, extending Brazil’s outreach beyond the bilateral agenda.2