President Lula's statement to the press after a bilateral meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro

Well, comrades from the Brazilian and Colombian press. I have come to Colombia six times in my previous mandates and was here last year, in Leticia. We have started a conversation to see when we will have to wait until we decide to build a strategic partnership between Colombia and Brazil.

I just said at the business event that, because we are colonized countries, we habitually stand with our backs to South America and look only toward Europe and the United States. Not even the African continent was in our sight, even after having used millions of slaves for over 350 years.

And in Spanish South America, too, the countries would look at the United States, would look at Europe and they wouldn’t look at us, because they saw us with a certain lack of trust, because Brazil is very big and Brazil is a problem for Colombia. We were wrong, the Brazilians, and we were wrong, the Colombians and the South Americans. Actually, we were wrong as Latin Americans, because it cannot be a coincidence that all of us, with over 500 years of existence, have not had a highly developed country, a rich country, a country with a welfare state that can compare with the European countries. There is something wrong.

And I think that what is wrong is, because we were colonized nations, for a long, long time, for many, many centuries, we were waiting for those who had colonized us to give the order and tell us what to do. When the colonizers left, in came more people to exploit our riches. And we remained the poor countries. We remained countries that are much less than what we deserved to be. So what I have come to propose to my comrade Petro [Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia] is, first, a policy to regroup and try to reorganize Unasur.

I lived through the best political moment in South America between 2002 and 2015. It was the best moment, in which the presidents, each of them, had their autonomy, their sovereignty, but we discussed many shared issues among us. Divergence did not stop us from working and deciding things together. We even created a South American defense secretariat, in which our military forces gathered so that we could patrol the world’s largest rainforest. And control the enormous fresh water reservoirs we have in our continent. This is over. People who used to think of a welfare state, people who used to think of human beings in the first place, are a minority today in Latin America and South America. There is this new thing called extremism which lives out of fake news. Which lives out of lies. Which lives out of negativity. It denies politics, it denies the institutions, it denies the union movement, it denies the organization forms of the working people.

What we have been realizing is that we are walking backwards, instead of moving forward. We discussed the issue of Venezuela, we discussed the issue of Haiti, but I wanted to tell you that much more important was our discussion of the relationship between Colombia and Brazil. Colombia has 55 million inhabitants. Brazil and Colombia have a 1,644-kilometer-long border. We have an exuberant and extraordinary Amazonic potential, possibly one of Planet Earth’s great riches that still remains: our biodiversity.

In the energetic transition, we have the extraordinary possibility of attracting the entire world to contribute with investments, with the development of a new energy matrix. Be it the green hydrogen, be it ethanol, be it biomass, be it solar energy. I mean, it is important that we have clarity about the riches we have in our hands, and that we — government and businesspeople, businesspeople and workers— must work together to build a new normatization for our relationships.

What is it that causes fear to the Colombian businesspeople regarding their relations with Brazil? What is it that causes fear to the Brazilian businesspeople regarding their relationship with Colombia? Why is it that, instead of a BRL 7 billion flow in trade, we do not have BRL 20 billion? BRL 15 billion? It is because, for a long time, we did not talk. For a long time, we treated one another as adversaries, even without knowing one another.

What I propose – and I am certain that we will establish an extraordinary strategic partnership — is that we must remove all barriers that are in the way of the relationship between Brazil and Colombia. That Colombian businesspeople feel at ease to invest in Brazil or to build partnerships with Brazilian businesspeople.

Because what interests us is generating quality jobs so that our people can, one day, have the opportunity to live a better life standard, eradicating illiteracy. That, apart from the businesspeople, that our universities can meet, our scientists can meet. What can we do together, how can we work together? Enough with holding a distance from each other. Enough with thinking that the solution to our problems is outside of our continent.

So when I get back to Brazil in a short while, after the Book Fair, I want to tell you, my dear friend Petro, that I will go back and tell my Brazilian friends and my government: a new relationship between Brazil and Colombia has been born. A new way of fostering this relationship has been born. A new mentality on the part of our businesspeople and the Colombian businesspeople has been born. And a great new opportunity for us to become two great nations has been born, developed nations that can tend to the needs and aspirations of the millions of Colombians, the millions of Brazilians who wish that, someday, they can have a better life.

You were elected for this purpose. I was elected for this purpose. And here is what we must do: take care of the people with tenderness, with much respect, and make them feel proud of being Colombian and being Brazilian. Mark my words: today, we have a trade flow of BRL 7 billion. By the end of my mandate, I will come back to Colombia to talk to comrade Petro to see what happened in terms of the evolution of our relationships, because we now have an extraordinary chance — possibly one we have never had — to work together to unify South America, to maybe make it possible for our dear Colombia to be part of the BRICS. Colombia will take part in some of the G20 meetings. I am certainly going to participate in the Biodiversity COP here in Colombia, in Cali. I think it will be in October. I will stimulate many Brazilian businesspeople to come to Colombia. And I will stimulate many Colombian businesspeople to go to Brazil. That they meet. That our scientists talk, that our union leaders talk, that our politicians talk. Enough with being so close to each other and living so separately for 500 years as we have.

So, my dear Petro, thank you for the warm welcome. Thank you to the Colombian press. I hope you will speak well about us when we turn our backs.  We will be happy if it happens, but f it doesn’t, it will not be a problem. And I can tell you that, if it depends on Colombia and Brazil, this continent will continue to be a peace zone. Because only peace can bring progress. War brings death and destruction, and that does not interest us.

A hug, comrades, and until my next time in Colombia.