Secretary Antony J. Blinken And Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon, everyone.  It’s good to see you all, and I’m especially pleased to see my friend, the foreign minister of Brazil.  We were together just recently with President Lula’s visit.  So a great opportunity to follow up on what we thought was a very successful visit of President Lula to Washington, to the White House.  President Biden felt very positive about the meeting itself, but also the agenda that we set for ourselves (inaudible) to follow up on, as well as, of course, the work we’re doing here at the G20. 

And Brazil will take the G20 mantle after India next year.  And I know that we both want to make sure that the G20 is focused on the issues that are affecting people around the world where our economies, as leading economies, have a responsibility to be making a difference, whether it’s food security, energy security, dealing with climate change, et cetera.

So welcome the opportunity to follow up on our presidents’ meeting, and then the G20 agenda itself.

FOREIGN MINISTER VIEIRA:  Yeah.  Wonderful occasion to meet you and your team again.  It’s true we had an excellent meeting of our presidents.  When was that, two – three weeks ago?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Three weeks ago, yeah.

FOREIGN MINISTER VIEIRA:  Yeah, three weeks ago in Washington.  It was an excellent meeting at the start of President Lula’s new term.  And it set the days for a period (inaudible) four years at least of a good program of work for our countries, and to launch again our bilateral relations.  Excellent.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you, my friend.  Thanks, everyone.

FOREIGN MINISTER VIEIRA:  Thank you too.