Overview
- At the G20 gathering in Africa, Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a warm, roughly 40-minute conversation described by Merz’s team as a “verbal hug.”
- Lula offered restaurant tips in Belém and suggested local dances to try, prompting Merz to say, “Next time we will go dancing together.”
- The encounter followed backlash in Brazil to Merz’s comment that journalists traveling with him were glad to leave Belém and return to Germany.
- Lula had publicly rebuked the tone of the remark, urging that Merz should have visited bars, danced, and sampled the local cuisine to grasp Pará and Belém’s quality.
- Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes posted insults about Merz on X during the uproar, reflecting the intensity of the domestic reaction.