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Trump Says He’ll Meet Lula Next Week After Crossing Paths at UN
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September 23, 2025
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4:48Now PlayingDonald Trump and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had been trading hostile barbs for months. It took just a New York minute on Tuesday for the relationship to take a friendlier turn.
The US president made a seemingly impromptu announcement at the United Nations that he would meet with his Brazilian counterpart next week.
“I saw him, he saw me, and we embraced,” Trump said during his speech to the UN General Assembly. “We had a good talk, and we agreed to meet next week.”
“We had, at least for about 39 seconds, we had excellent chemistry,” Trump said. “It’s a good sign.”
For more on Trump's speech, Bloomberg News Senior Reporter Myles Miller spoke with Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Intelligence.
Within moments, the Latin American nation’s currency jumped the most in two weeks and its benchmark stock index spiked to a record high.
The rapprochement came as a shock to observers who have watched the relationship between the long-time allies deteriorate this year. As the Trump administration imposed sanctions and tariffs over allegations conservatives were being unfairly targeted in Brazil, the South American country’s government accused Trump of interfering in its sovereignty.
But that tension was apparently set aside during a brief, unscheduled meeting between the leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.
As Lula was delivering his opening remarks — including plenty of direct and indirect criticism of US policy — Trump was watching from a nearby waiting room.
When the Brazilian leader wrapped up his speech, he headed to the same room, where he encountered the American president and just an aide or two from each country, according to a description of the meeting from a Brazilian government official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive diplomatic matters.
The leaders shook hands and chatted amicably, with Lula mentioning that he’d been trying to set up a meeting with Trump. The US president offered to talk next week, and Lula readily agreed, though there was no discussion of whether the event would be in-person, online or over the phone, or who all would attend, the government official said.
With that, Trump left to give his own speech, in which he also referenced tension with Brazil.
The two largest nations in the Americas have clashed over the fate of former President Jair Bolsonaro — a Trump ally convicted of attempting a coup against Lula. Brazil’s top court sentenced Bolsonaro to more than 27 years in prison, even after Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports in July in a bid to stop the trial. His administration has threatened further action against what it considers a politically motivated persecution of the conservative leader.
But Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff remarks on Tuesday announcing the leaders’ plan to meet next week was enough for investors, who quickly bid up Brazil assets. The real spiked and was 1% stronger at 5.2804 per dollar as of 1:27 p.m. in New York. The Ibovespa stock gauge saw a similar jump and was up 1.2% for the day.
The “market seems to be optimistic of a potential de-escalation of the recent tension, although it remains unclear whether the meeting could solve the disagreements between the two leaders once for all,” said Dan Pan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank.
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