Brazil’s new President Lula da Silva visited the United States last week for high-level talks with U.S. President Joe Biden. Their talks focused notably on climate change and on the threats facing both nations’ democracies.

Da Silva is a champion of acting to address the climate crisis and conserving the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil’s recent presidential election, da Silva replaced first-term President Jair Bolsonaro, who scorned efforts to address the climate crisis and oversaw a doubling of the rate of loss for Brazilian rainforest. On issues of that nature, Bolsonaro’s policies paralleled those of defeated former US President Donald Trump. Like Trump, Bolsonaro also refused to accept his defeat at the polls, making false and unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud. His followers also unsuccessfully sought to spark a coup to keep Bolsonaro in power following his defeat.