Lula accuses Trump of attempting to establish "new UN"

Speaking in Rio Grande do Sul, Lula also said that Trump “wants to run the world through Twitter”.

“It’s remarkable. Every day he says something, and every day the world is talking about what he said,” Lula said, according to Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Lula defended multilateralism against what he called “the law of the jungle” in global affairs and warned that “the UN charter is being torn”.

Lula’s remarks come a day after he spoke by phone with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who urged his Brazilian counterpart to safeguard the “central role” of the UN in international affairs.

His comments also come as the White House withdraws the US from dozens of UN bodies and Trump launches his “Board of Peace”, while imposing his “America First” agenda on global politics and trade through tariffs and military threats to such a degree that allies of Washington question whether they can now trust the US.

Trump launched the board with a signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, during the annual summit of the World Economic Forum, another international body that has increasingly presented itself as an alternative to the UN system.

Members of the board include Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and whose forces have killed more than 300 staff members from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in Gaza.