Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a closely watched White House meeting on Thursday in Washington to discuss trade and security, but the session, which had been billed as open to cameras, was abruptly closed to the press, prompting fresh questions over why the Trump and Lula meeting was handled so opaquely.
The two leaders have spent months trying to repair a strained relationship shaped by tariffs, clashing political alliances and parallel controversies at home. The Trump administration has hit Brazilian goods with successive import duties, threatened to label Brazil's biggest criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organisations and clashed with Lula over everything from former president Jair Bolsonaro's legal troubles to the war in Iran. Against that backdrop, Thursday's bilateral meeting had been expected to showcase a reset. Instead, it left observers guessing.
