End of the Empire is a twice-monthly feature on all news relating to the transition from the unipolar world of the US Empire to a multipolar world.

Friday, April 7th. Following a visit to China by French President Emmanual Macron, the heads of state released a joint communique in which they expressed the need “to seek to strengthen the multilateral international system under the aegis of the United Nations, in a multipolar world”.

A multipolar world means one wherein the numerous regional superpowers all work together to avoid conflict and promote prosperity wherever possible under the auspices of international law. This is in contrast to the “unipolar” world, in which the United States uses its command of military and financial systems to advance its own view of what international law should be.

France is one of the US’ key allies, China a key adversary, and the communique demonstrates the speed that US allies will step out of line as Washington would see it, if they feel the time as advantageous.

For example, earlier in April came the Discord Leaks’ revelation that the US-backed national security dictator in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, “secretly commanded his government to send rockets, artillery, and gunpowder to Russia, saying in a meeting that the shipments should be discreet in order ‘to avoid problems with the West,’” per Responsible Statecraft.

The Egyptian military as John Glaser wrote in 2013 when the army was preparing to overthrow the last democratically-elected head of state, Mohammed Morsi, “may be one of the U.S. government’s best friends in the entire Arab world… one built and trained by Washington”.

During the deposition of Morsi by the army built and trained by Washington, Glaser noted that it was in the Guardian where none other than Fattah al-Sisi, then-General of the army, said he wouldn’t overthrow the Morsi government without approval from Washington.

“If it’s true that Sisi is covertly building rockets for Russia that could be used in Ukraine, we need to have a serious reckoning about the state of our relationship,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D – CT) told the Washington Post, who revealed the Discord Leaks in early April.

The Sisi regime denied the accusations, and Biden hasn’t weighed in on them specifically.

Lula goes to China

Sunday, April 14th. On the heels of Macron’s visit to China was Brazilian President Ignacio Luiz “Lula” Da Silva.

In Beijing, Lula and President Xi Jinping also released statements “supporting “multilateralism” for a “just and equitable international governance system (international order)”.

Alongside their pronouncements on the upholding of multilateralism, the two leaders agreed that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were “the only viable way out of the crisis”.

US Congressional democrats were largely happy to see Lula Da Silva win the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections over right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, mainly because of his stance toward environmental issues. Biden’s administration may have suspected that with Lula returning to office, the second-largest economy in the Western Hemisphere would have further distanced itself from strategic US policy.

Lula was the Brazilian head of state who put them—the B—in “BRICS,” (the others being Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and if Biden’s team were watching his campaign, they would have heard a lot of rhetoric about escaping the US dollar, and creating competing reserve currencies for Latin America or for the BRICS nations.

He made dozens of statements criticizing the dollar’s hegemony over financial institutions and international trade, and criticized Biden over his handling of Ukraine, claiming his actions helped start the war, continue it, and that he wasn’t a real leader as a result.

On April 17th, Brasilia welcomed Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who spoke with his counterpart Mauro Vieira.

After the meeting, Lavrov used the words “a rather tough struggle” to describe the West’s attempts to maintain dollar and military hegemony of the world. Vieira said that sanctions against Russia were negative for the rest of the world, and didn’t support them. Brazil has provided no military support for Ukraine, despite invitations from Germany and the US to do so.

“As for the process in Ukraine, we are grateful to our Brazilian friends for their excellent understanding of this situation’s genesis. We are grateful (to them) for striving to contribute to finding ways to settle it,” Lavrov said.

After the meeting, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby lashed out at Brasilia.

“Brazil has substantively and rhetorically approached this issue by suggesting that the United States and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that we share responsibility for the war,” Kirby told reporters in Washington. “In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts”.

PICTURED ABOVE: The original BRIC founders, Dimitry Medvedev, Ignacio Da Silva, Hu Jintao and Manmohan Singh.

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