President Lula’s press statement during the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to Brazil - May 3rd, 2024

Well, I would like to begin this interview by asking permission from the Japanese Prime Minister, our distinguished visitor Fumio Kishida, to talk a bit about Brazil and to tell this to the press:

Minister Fumio Kishida’s first words at the meeting we had expressed solidarity with the people of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, who are suffering one of the most serious floods we have ever seen. 

Never in Brazil’s history have we had so much rain in a single location. To give you an idea, Prime Minister, we have already recorded 235 municipalities affected by this torrential rain. That’s half the state.

Thirty-five people have died, seventy-four are missing and the bridges over the Guaíba River — the Brazilians know what the Guaíba River is — have risen four and a half meters already. They have been overwhelmed by the water has covered all of them. 

Everyone knows that I was in Porto Alegre yesterday. We could hardly see beyond the tips of our noses. That was a lot of rain, a lot of fog and mist. We went there with several ministers, not only to pay solidarity but especially to express the Federal Government’s public commitment that we will spare no effort in ensuring that all necessary support is provided for the recovery from the damage caused by this much rainfall in the state.

The only thing we cannot recover are the lives, you know, that were lost. We also want to express our solidarity with the families, with the Gaucho people. Our solidarity. And to assure the state governor that the Brazilian Government, the Federal Government and its 37 ministers stand ready to assist the State of Rio Grande do Sul to the best of our abilities.

For this reason, Prime Minister, I want to thank you for your solidarity, and I know that in Rio Grande do Sul many residents are of Japanese descent.

Well, this visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is a very important one. Japan has so many people in Brazil that the Minister should not go too long without visiting. Not all Japanese cities have as many Japanese inhabitants as we have here in Brazil.

So I think that every Japanese Prime Minister, all of them, when they win their elections, must pay their visits inside Japan, must pay visits to some countries, but Brazil is the country with the largest number of Japanese immigrants. The largest [Japanese] community outside Japan is in Brazil.

So, the Japanese ministers must, every now and then, come to visit Brazil. Similarly, Japanese businesspeople must come visit us. Japanese businesspeople, especially those who want to invest in new technologies, who want to invest, you know, in this new thing called artificial intelligence, who want to invest in this new data industry. 

Brazil offers all the possibilities for building partnerships between Brazilian and Japanese businesspeople. I say this every day, Prime Minister: for us Brazilians, good trade is not just about selling and never buying anything in return. Good trade is a two-way street. You sell and you buy, and this kind of trade requires a certain balance, so that both countries feel comfortable with it, you know, with their trade relations policy.

I told Prime Minister Fumio here, the issue is that we used to have a commercial flow, a trade relationship between Brazil and Japan, of almost USD 18 billion, but now that has dropped to USD 11 billion.

That is not much for a country that ranks as the world’s third-largest economy, and for another country that will become the world’s eighth-largest economy. That is little for the size of the Japanese population, it is little for the size of the Brazilian population, and it is little for a population that has the purchasing power to consume the good things we produce in both our countries. 

I remember — I don’t want to miss the opportunity of telling this story here. The first Japanese Prime Minister I hosted was Prime Minister [Junichiro] Koizumi. And Brazil had been trying to sell fruit to Japan for 28 years. And Japan would not buy Brazilian fruit because of their prejudice regarding the so-called fruit fly. 

So it happened that, when it was time for lunch, I prepared a tray of mangos, the most beautiful mangos the Brazilian harvest had produced, to put between myself and the Japanese Prime Minister. I also had a tray prepared of mangoes cut and ready to eat. 

Prime Minister Koizumi was in awe of the beauty of the mangos, the size of the mangos, you know? He was really excited. Then I told him: "Prime Minister, go ahead and try a piece of mango." So he took a fork, grabbed a piece of mango, put it into his mouth, chewed, and said: "Very good."

Then I said: "There you go, Prime Minister, this is so good, but we have been trying to export to Japan for 28 years and you don’t buy our mangos. You buy from Malaysia or I don’t know where else, but you don’t buy from us."

What I know is that four or five months later, we exported our first fruit shipment to Japan and a lot of mangoes have left the Petrolina airport, in Pernambuco, and have been exported to Japan. 

And that is how we make things happen. Nobody loves what they don’t know. Nobody likes what they have never tried. And we often are prejudiced against one another without knowing one another. 

So during this visit to Brazil, and accompanied by a group of businesspeople, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will head to São Paulo to talk to businesspeople there, and will go to the Ibirapuera park to meet with the Japanese community there.

I urged him to go to the Liberdade neighborhood so he could learn about the Japan that exists in Brazil. To go to a restaurant at Liberdade and eat the best Japanese food we have in Brazil, made by Japanese people, by Japanese descendants in Brazil. Because there are two million and seven hundred people, you know, between Japanese and Japanese descendants here in Brazil. That’s quite a lot. And we have two hundred and eleven thousand Brazilians in Japan, approximately, or two hundred and thirteen thousand. 

For me, this meeting today was very rewarding. First, because I began by thanking the Prime Minister for inviting me to the G7 in Hiroshima. I confess that I always wanted to visit Hiroshima, which I did. I visited the memorial dedicated to the people who died in Hiroshima, and I had the opportunity to take part in a very meaningful meeting in Hiroshima.

I also began by thanking the Prime Minister because Japan took the extraordinary measure of lifting the visa requirement for Brazilians who travel to Japan. That means that Brazilians can now travel to Japan, visit the Japanese islands, know the Japanese people and see how developed that country is. 

I believe it was an extraordinary step forward in the Brazil-Japan relationship. We are celebrating 130 years of diplomatic relations. 130 years! The Prime Minister invited me to go to Japan in 2025. In 2025, we will celebrate the completion of a strategic partnership we have, and we will have the Brazil-Japan Cultural Year. 

I told the Prime Minister: "Alright, I have already accepted your invitation to go to Japan in 2025". I will not be taking you, Alckmin, because we cannot travel together. And I hope we can have a great celebration in Japan, with the Japanese and the Brazilian communities so that we can firmly seal this strategic partnership.

Brazil does not want Japan to see it as a minor country, as if it were a poor country, or as if it were… No, Japan must see Brazil for its size. Brazil is a great country, not just from the territorial perspective, not just in terms of its borders, not just for the size of its forests, not just for its mineral riches.

Brazil is a great country because of its very hard-working and generous people. I mean no disrespect to any other country, but I think there aren’t many people in the world who have the joy and unpretentiousness of the Brazilian people. This is why Japan needs to adopt Brazil as a preferential partner and a strategic partner. So that we can sell more and buy more. 

For example, I don’t know what you had for dinner last night, but for the love of God, if you are in São Paulo… Alckmin, you will be there. You were state governor there, you are the vice president. Please take Prime Minister Fumio to eat a Brazilian barbecue at the best restaurant in São Paulo. So that next week he can start importing our beef so that this partnership can generate more development.

Our beef is high-quality and it’s cheaper than the beef you buy. I do not even know how much you pay, but I am sure ours is cheaper. And it [has] extreme quality. This man, the Minister of Agriculture [Carlos Fávaro] cooks such a barbecue… If the Prime Minister tried it, he wouldn’t want to go back to Japan. 

So I’m very grateful for this meeting. I want to tell the Japanese businesspeople who are present here that this country has decided to be great. Brazil has decided to be a developed country, Brazil wants to leave the group of developing countries. We want to become a highly developed country; we want to be among the six largest world economies. We have legal stability, we have fiscal stability, we have economic stability, we have social stability. And we have predictability, which is sacred. 

Here, nothing is done in the dead of night. Here, everyone knows what we are going to do because of our commitment — now that we are no longer a third-world country, that we are no longer a developing country — now, Prime Minister, we are proudly a country from the Global South. This gives Brazil greater status because the countries which had been developing have now began to grow. People are earning more money, people are enjoying the fact that they work more, people are enjoying having access to the material goods they produce. 

I remember I was president of the Republic when digital TV came along. There was the North American model, the Japanese model, and the European model. Here, in South America, almost every country was about to adopt the European model. And Brazil decided to adopt the Japanese model. I spoke to all the presidents, from Chávez (Hugo Chávez, former president of Venezuela) to Kirchner (Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina), showing them the importance of adopting the Japanese model. That Japan would come to South America and Brazil to start a semiconductor factory. I showed them all this.

The semiconductor hasn’t happened yet. But I am alive and young, so I believe that the Japanese businesspeople must know they cannot miss the Brazilian market and the influence it has over other markets. Because we understand that Brazil cannot grow alone. We want everyone to grow, you know, as equals. 

We want our neighboring countries to develop. We want everyone to grow and to enjoy opportunities. And now that the world is astonished by the climate discussions, now that the world has realized that we can either take care of the planet or it will no longer take care of us — now people are realizing that discussing global warming is a serious issue, not a rhetorical one, South America is stepping up as a wonderful place to invest, to discuss energy transition, to discuss climate transition and to produce all the clean energy we could ever wish to produce.

I’d like the Japanese businesspeople who came to Brazil to think about this. Whenever you are thinking of investing, take a good look at the world map and say: "Brazil is where I want to invest, because all of these Japanese people went there and stayed there, and live there, and they are almost 3 million people there."

And we will be most grateful. We will start investing in Japan. Our businesses will grow. And everything will be even better between Brazil and Japan. These are the words I wanted to say to thank Japan for their visit on this very important day.

Prime Minister, thank you very much. Rest assured that you will be taking with you the best we have to offer, which is much, much love to share with our brothers and sisters around Planet Earth.

Many thanks, my dear.