JOHANNESBURG — Friedrich Merz and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva managed to patch up their quarrel over comments about the Amazonian city of Belém in a 40-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, during which they agreed to jointly attend Germany’s Hannover Messe industrial fair in 2026. The unusually cordial meeting, which was filled with warm handshakes and closed-lip smiles, ended days of escalating friction over the German chancellor’s remarks about Brazil, and it represented a diplomatic reset., Nov. 23, 2025
The spat broke out after Friedrich Merz joked at a trade event in Berlin that “none” of the journalists who had travelled with him to COP30 last month wanted to remain there, and that they were all glad to be back home in Germany from “that place,” according to Reuters. Brazilian media and politicians described the comment as prejudiced and condescending toward the Amazonian host city.
One Associated Press story recounted how leaders in Brazil — from the foreign ministry to the governor of Pará state to Belém’s mayor — had all called for an explanation, while social media lit up with anger and allegations of arrogance and racism. Lula publicly responded by saying the German leader “should have gone to a bar, danced and tried the food in Pará” rather than speaking ill of the city.
Back in Berlin, the German government called it a distortion of the quote, explaining that, rather than disdain for Brazil, it was an expression of tiredness by a delegation that had flown overnight from Germany. Officials emphasised that Brazil remained Germany’s most important partner in Latin America and that the Amazon trip had given the chancellor a positive impression.
At a G20 meeting held in Johannesburg on Saturday, Friedrich Merz and Lula had what aides described as a 40-minute conversation in which the two leaders “verbally hugged,” as one German dpa article put it. Merz tells us that Lula sent his tips on restaurants and local dances he should try in Belém, and Merz responded, “Great, another time we will go dancing together.”
The conciliatory tenor was a shift from the days earlier in the week, when disagreement here over Belém risked drowning out COP30’s last hours and Germany’s place in the climate talks. However, on the summit’s penultimate day, a Guardian live blog said Berlin looked eager to defuse tensions with Brazil before leaders flew away from the Amazon.
For all the talk, both states have strong reasons to put the row behind them. The Amazon Fund is one of Brazil’s most high-profile recipients of donor funding and Germany, which maintains a grudge with Bolsonaro over his government’s environmental policies, recently pledged to pay the Brazilian states that keep their trees standing as per an agreement signed in 2015 while Friedrich Merz promised a “considerable” sum toward Lula’s proposed Tropical Forests Forever Fund that would help forest nations leave stock below ground.
Speaking to foreign media in Belém before COP30, Lula said rich nations need to support the establishment of a permanent fund that could use private capital for conservation rather than simply donating money once. The effort is a cornerstone of Brazil’s attempt to reconcile rainforest preservation with a development agenda in the Amazon.
The Hannover Messe role offers that partnership a highly visible industrial stage. Brazil’s president will kick off the 2026 edition at its northern German venue alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, according to a November announcement, with Brazil designated as the partner country and Latin America’s biggest economy.
Businessman João Nascimento, who is also the mayor of the town’s outlying area, said he has spent nearly all his own money and now earns very little to help revive a project that dates back well before the Belém crisis. Brazil was first designated as its partner country in 2026 at Hannover Messe, in a 2024 press release that emphasized Brazil’s industrial facilities and renewable energy components. A subsequent 2025 piece on “New Industry Brazil,” meanwhile, framed the fair in terms of Lula’s manufacturing strategy.
During a September telephone call, Lula and Friedrich Merz discussed preparations for the fair and confirmed that Brazil would be the guest of honor, painting the expo as an opportunity to deepen ties through investments and technology developed over decades of commerce between the two countries.
The Belém episode was also part of a larger dispute over Germany’s climate policy under Merz. One recent El País analysis argued his coalition has placed energy costs and industrial competitiveness ahead of ambitious emissions targets, with climate advocates criticizing that Berlin has abandoned its previous leadership position at U.N. talks.
In Brazil, soothing tensions with Berlin serves to redirect the spotlight to COP30’s deliverables and to Lula’s efforts to turn the Amazon into a poster child of fair, climate-friendly development. Civil society groups, including the Climate Action Network, said in a post-summit statement that, while the deal was a hopeful step, they cautioned that climate finance and fossil-fuel commitments remain insufficient.
Next up: Friedrich Merz and a certain Lula will have to show whether the warmth in Johannesburg can hold through grueling negotiations still ahead — from getting climate finance right post-COP30 to reviving the moribund EU-Mercosur trade deal. Their joint visit to Hanover in April 2026 will be a test of whether this has truly been reset.
