Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged Monday that his country’s oil and critical minerals will remain outside foreign control, framing the pledge as a central choice facing voters ahead of the October 4 first-round presidential election.
Lula told citizens the vote amounts to a decision about what kind of country they want, invoking Venezuela’s recent experience with its energy sector as a cautionary example. He asked pointedly whether Brazilians wanted their oil to remain their own, or to see happen in Brazil what has unfolded in Venezuela — an apparent reference to Washington’s recent deal securing a stake in Venezuelan crude production and broader U.S. involvement in that country’s oil sector.
In a separate address, Lula went further, declaring that Brazil is “not a colony and will not be anyone’s colony,” and warning against outside interference in the country’s mineral and petroleum industries.
The remarks build on a sovereignty-focused resource strategy Lula has pushed for months, including legislation passed by Brazil’s Congress this year that lets the government block foreign takeovers of mining companies and requires foreign firms to process and refine critical minerals — of which Brazil holds the world’s second-largest reserves — on Brazilian soil rather than exporting raw ore. Lula has framed the approach as avoiding a repeat of the colonial-era pattern of shipping out unprocessed resources only to reimport costlier finished goods, while insisting the door remains open to investment from the U.S., China, Europe and elsewhere on those terms.
