President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that in a recent conversation with United States President Donald Trump, he affirmed that words are more powerful than weapons and that Brazil does not want a war in Latin America. The statement refers to growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela.
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In a speech in Belo Horizonte during an edition of the Federal Caravan (a policy in which the president and his ministers meet with the region’s mayors to hear requests and suggestions), Lula mentioned the phone call, without mentioning Venezuela or the country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro. Trump pressured the head of the Chavista regime to resign.
— The unilateralism desired by President Trump is that the strongest determines what others will do. It is always the law of the strongest. Yesterday, when I spoke to him, he spoke to me… He spoke to me a lot. I said: ‘Hey Trump, we don’t want war in Latin America, it’s a zone of peace,’ Lula reported.
The last phone call between the two leaders released by Itamaraty dates back to December 2. GLOBO questioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency of the Republic about the existence of a new conversation between Lula and Trump, but received no response until the publication of this text.
Then, Lula quoted part of what would have been the US president’s speech: “I have more weapons, I have more ships, I have more bombs.”
— I said (to Trump), “Man, I believe in the power of words much more than in the power of guns. Let’s try to use words as an instrument of persuasion, of persuasion to do the right things.” Let us believe that words are the most powerful way to solve problems, Lula said.
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The president once again said he did not want a fight with the United States, even as he criticized the US president’s attacks on multilateralism.
— We are living a very important moment in Brazil. Democracy around the world is not doing well. The world has little global leadership. There is a fragmentation, a destruction of democracy, an attempt to end multilateralism, which has sustained world peace since World War II, through unilateralism, Lula said.
Shortly before, in the same speech, he declared that “you have to have courage” to criticize Trump and that relations between countries must be respectful.
— You have to have courage. When President Trump made the decisions he made against the world, you have no idea the fear of part of the Brazilian elite: “ah, we have to speak, we have to speak, we have to speak”. I learned from my illiterate mother that no one respects someone who does not respect themselves. If I want to be respected, I must respect myself. This is why I want to maintain good relations with the United States. It is the richest country in the world, the most powerful in the world from a technological, military and scientific point of view. I don’t want to fight with the United States,” he said.
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