Colombian President Gustavo Petro (left) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva duirng the latter's visit to Colombia, April 2024. Photo: Presidency of Colombia.
The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, criticized US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his hawkish position toward Latin America.
Lula predicted that negotiations with the US will fail if they are led by Rubio. “He opposes our allies in Venezuela, Cuba, and Argentina,” Lula said on Thursday, October 30.
He emphasized that Brazil seeks relations of equality, not subordination, with the United States.
The statement laid bare his distrust of Rubio, whom he considers an ideological obstacle to any attempt at constructive cooperation.
The Brazilian president insisted that Washington’s representatives “must truly understand and respect Brazil.”
Lula met with US President Donald Trump on October 26, and discussed ending the tariffs that the US has imposed on the South American giant.
Following Lula’s remarks, Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused Rubio of being a “stumbling block” in the United States’ relations with Latin America.
“Marco Rubio has become a sectarian obstacle to the peaceful meeting between the US and the Americas,” he wrote on social media.
Both Petro and Lula have condemned the ongoing military aggression by the United States against Venezuela and the US deployment in the Caribbean. The Brazilian president has emphatically stated that Latin America does not need any more invasions. It needs respect, cooperation, and justice.
Since September, the US has escalated its strategy of intimidating Venezuela with a possible military intervention, deploying warships in the Caribbean Sea, under the guise of combating drug trafficking.
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CELAC-EU Summit
On Wednesday, October 29, Colombian President Gustavo Petro launched a serious accusation against the United States, alleging that Washington is trying to sabotage the upcoming summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU).
The summit will be held in Santa Marta, Colombia, on November 9 and 10. The Colombian president stated that the US is exerting significant diplomatic pressure on several countries to deliberately not attend the event.
“We must repudiate the United States exerting strong pressure on Caribbean countries not to attend the summit in Santa Marta with Europe,” President Petro declared, adding that this demonstrates a direct attempt at a diplomatic boycott.
The summit in Santa Marta had already become an international flashpoint after a US strike on a small boat killed a Colombian fisherman, and which the Colombian president pointed out as having occurred in Colombian territorial waters, despite Washington’s claim that it had taken place in international waters.
(Últimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
