The Duran Podcast - Lavrov and Latin America. Cuba and BRICS

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

Lavrov and Latin America. Cuba and BRICS

All right, Alexander, let's discuss Lavrov's trip to South America. Hasn't been covered too much in the collective West media, but an important trip from the Russian foreign minister. What are your thoughts? Absolutely. Well, first of all, I mean, he's visited some interesting countries. He's visited Cuba and he's visited Venezuela. Now, these are two friends of Russia's, traditional friends of Russia's.

But perhaps the more interesting of those two trips in some respects, I think, again, is the trip to Cuba. Cuba's been going through many economic problems, as we've all known. The Russians last year started to reinvest in Cuba in a very, very big way. Lavrov primarily went to Cuba to say that. Cuba is going to start receiving Russian oil, Russian oil shipments. We are looking essentially at a situation where Cuba is, the Cuban-Russian relationship is being re-established to basically where it was, you know, the heyday of the Soviet Union when the Soviets were basically very closely integrated with Cuba. And I think that at some point,

if this relationship continues to develop in the way that it is it is not impossible if that's highly likely that Cuba will apply to join the bricks just saying so I mean that that is an interesting

interesting visit Venezuela was interesting because obviously the Russians have good relations with Venezuela there was some talk at one point that Maduro might be inching towards some kind of reconciliation with the Biden administration.

I never took that very seriously myself. Lavrov is there. He's reforging the relationship with Venezuela. Venezuela has taken a very strong line against Israel in the Middle East, the Gaza crisis that has pushed the Venezuelans closer towards the Russians again. And of course, Venezuela has this ongoing. conflict with with um on on its on its border with gaiana we don't yet know how that's going to fully resolve at the moment it seems to have eased off slightly but it's still there so the

venezuelans are again tilting strongly back to the russians and at a time when maduro by the way looks absolutely firmly in control and the venezuelan economy appears have stabilized. But the really big one, the important visit, the one that is the one that ultimately in geopolitical terms is going to make the big difference is Lavrov's visits to Brazil. So he's met with Lula, he's met with the Brazilian leadership. There's clearly a strong recommitment by Brazil to the bridge. Lula has had this huge round with the Israelis who have effectively declared him persona not grater. And it's absolutely clear that Brazil, for the moment, is completely and fully signed up

to the, not just to the BRICS project, but to the entire BRICS project, including the construction of the financial and global system, which is going to be discussed at the forthcoming BRICS summit in Kazan, in Russia, and given that Brazil is one of the biggest economies, it's a G20 economy, a big G20 economy, that is important, and it means a general solidification of the BRICs. And I'm going to suggest that even if Lula goes, even if someone like Bolshev, comes back and Bolsonaro has had a big rally apparently in support of him in Brazil. He still has.

He's supporters. I don't think that's going to change. I was going to ask you about Bolsonaro. If there was to be a return of Bolsonaro, very big protests the other day, by the way. What would that mean for Bricks? As I said, he didn't take Brazil out of Briggs before. He had very, very good relations with the Russians. I don't think he would take Brazil out of the bricks

or out of this new system if it were created because why would he? Bear in mind that Millet in Argentina has stopped Argentina's entry to the Briggs but he sent his foreign minister to the Munich Security Conference to speak with Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, and apparently that was a very friendly meeting.

So even Milleg, who is much more radical than Bolsonaro, seems to be drawing back. And I don't think Bolsonaro, who tilted anyway towards the Russians over the Ukraine crisis, is going to change his views. What would it mean for Cuba to get into bricks? It would be transferred. What would be the US's reaction to that? But it wouldn't be happy.

But for Cuba, it would be transformative. It would mean that Cuba for the first time since basically, is it in 1962, I think it was, that Kennedy imposed the embargo. It would be that for the first time, Cuba would be. connected to a real global trade system. I mean, it's been able to trade with Western countries, but those Western countries have always been wary of investing in Cuba because, obviously, they don't want to annoy the United States, and they haven't been too keen anyway on some of the policies that the Castro government, Fidel Castro, was conducting. The Cuba used to be part of Comic-Con,

the CMEA, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, that the Soviets had set up with their various allies. But that wasn't so much a trading system in the sense that, you know, trading systems, as we understand, because it was very controlled. It was basically arrangements between centrally planned economies. Cuba has been moving away from central planning. They've been gradually opening up there, you know, marketising more and more of their economy. So, you know, there's a lot more private enterprise in Cuba.

So much more opportunity now for investment in Cuba. What the bricks are creating is a proper trading system with its own financial system behind it. And that will give Cuba and Cubans an opportunity to undertake real trade and attract investment, like they've never experienced before at any point since the early 1960s. All right, anything else that you want to discuss with Lavrov's trip? Well, the key thing to say is that, of course, he's gone to countries that are friendly with Russia. This is, to a great extent, an exercise in building up, strengthening relations with countries which are already friends.

But Lavrov was very, very well received in all of these countries. And beyond that, it reflects the sea change, the mood change, that there has been across Latin America. I mean, Argentina, for its own specific reasons, is something of the exception. All of the other Latin American countries are becoming increasingly friendly to Russia. Russia, Colombia, the United States' most loyal ally in Latin America, has made it absolutely clear that it is not going to supply weapons to Ukraine, for example, and has spoken strongly against Zelensky's plan, so-called peace proposal, and has shown understanding of Russia's position. even Ecuador, which was at one point, you know, with its new government, which is also apparently pro-American, they're apparently pulling back from the idea of supplying weapons to Ukraine. Overall, the mood in Latin America is turning increasingly positive to the Russians.

And we see again with this trip that Russia is far from isolated around the world. On the contrary, more and more countries are sympathetic to it. And it is the United States that is losing friends and influence. All right. We will end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitch, shoot, telegram, rock, fin, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop, 50% of all T-shirts. Take care.