CARLOS VILLELAPORTO ALEGRE, RS (FOLHAPRESS) - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) defended the completion of the Navy's nuclear submarine, the armed forces' main nuclear energy project, as a matter of national sovereignty, and said that Brazil cannot remain "with its head down all its life".
Lula defends nuclear submarine and says Brazil cannot remain 'with its head down all its life'
CARLOS VILLELAPORTO ALEGRE, RS (FOLHAPRESS) - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) defended the completion of the Navy's nuclear submarine, the armed forces' main nuclear energy project, as a matter of national sovereignty, and said...
The speech took place almost three months after the government cut R$4.4 billion from the Ministry of Defense's budget. "We don't have national sovereignty because we make speeches.
- Speeches are just words, which the adversary sometimes doesn't even listen to.
- We have to be prepared for them to know that we will have the strength to be able to say no.
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In a speech this Wednesday (19), in Iperó (SP), where he was fulfilling a schedule at the Aramar Nuclear Industrial Center, linked to the Navy's Nuclear Program, he promised "once and for all" the resources to complete the project. The speech took place almost three months after the government cut R$4.4 billion from the Ministry of Defense's budget.
"We don't have national sovereignty because we make speeches. Speeches are just words, which the adversary sometimes doesn't even listen to. We have to be prepared for them to know that we will have the strength to be able to say no. That we will have the voice to be able to say: let's compete. What we can't do is have a country of this size with its head down all its life," said Lula.
He also stated that the completion of the vessel would make Brazil join the countries on the UN Security Council, in which participation has been a request of the PT's foreign policy since its first term.
The Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, said that the project allows Brazil to become an exporter of technology and that Brazilians are to be congratulated, "regardless of politics".
Still, he highlighted the federal government's efforts and made a nod to Lula's leadership in the speech. "You are the great helmsman of these submarines that are going to leave here," he said.
In his speech, Lula also called the president of Petrobras, Magda Chambriard, a "tycoon" twice. "After the discovery of oil in the Equatorial Margin, this girl looks like the queen of Saudi Arabia," he said.
The visit included the construction area of the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor, a project that, according to the government, will quadruple the SUS's capacity for national production of cancer medicines.
Aramar was created in 1986 by the Navy to develop nuclear technology. The president arrived in Sorocaba in the morning, went to Iperó and returned to Brasília at the end of the agenda for the inauguration of minister Luiz Felipe Salomão as president of the STJ.
In the last year, Lula began to highlight issues related to sovereignty, defense and energy and cites the themes in recent speeches on geopolitics.
At an event in Itajaí (SC) in June, Lula said he would include national defense in his government program and train the Armed Forces because there are "a lot of crazy people in the world." In his speech, Lula cited threats from United States President Donald Trump to invade Greenland and the Panama Canal. He also mentioned the nuclear weapons of Pakistan, India, North Korea, China and Russia.
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