“If it depends on my government and if it depends on my disposition, Brazil and China will be unavoidable partners. Our relationship will be indestructible,” said Lula at the end of the China-Brazil Business Seminar on Monday (12) in Beijing, the Chinese capital.
“China needs Brazil and Brazil needs China, and the two of us together can make the Global South respected worldwide like never before,” added the Brazilian president.
Lula closed the event, speaking after the vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and president of the All-China Confederation of Industry and Commerce, Gao Yunlong.
After reading his speech, Lula continued with an impromptu speech, something he had done on his previous state visit to the Asian country when he spoke during Dilma Rousseff’s official inauguration ceremony as head of the New Development Bank (NDB) in 2023.
Lula said that building the economic alliance between China and Brazil would be “one of those partnerships between Brazilian and Chinese companies that has no return. Be sure that from now on, it will only grow.”
“We want to export more and we also want to import more,” said Lula in line with what he said in Moscow on his previous stop in Beijing. “A good trade policy is a two-way street: you buy and sell. It’s a win-win game, not a lose-lose game.”
The president mentioned the more than 30-fold growth in trade between the two countries between 2003-2025 and China’s rise in the last decade from 14th to 5th place in the ranking of direct investment in Brazil, making it the main Asian investor in the country, “with a stock of more than US$ 54 billion.”
Only commodities
Lula acknowledged that “there are many people who complain that Brazil only exports agricultural products and iron ore to China, that is, only commodities”. The president rebutted this criticism, saying that investment in education is necessary to “be competitive in the technological world, in the digital world.”
“We have to export agribusiness [products] and use this money to invest in education for us to be competitive with China in the production of electric cars, batteries, in AI developing,” argued the president.
However, Lula acknowledged that “the ideal [scenario] for Brazil is not to export soybeans but know-how, to export knowledge. “There’s no miracle for that. We have to invest in education like the Chinese have done,” he reiterated.
The president said Brazil needs to thank God that it is exporting agribusiness [products] because we also need to know how much technology is in soybean [production] today, how much genetic engineering is in a kilo of meat that we sell, in a kilo of chicken, in a kilo of pork, in a bag of corn.”
Lula was applauded by the audience. The seminar had 750 registrations from both Brazilian and Chinese companies, with the Brazilian side largely made up of agribusiness entrepreneurs.
Protectionism can lead to war
In accordance with his ministers, Lula criticized the Trump administration’s tariffs: “There is no way out for a country alone. We need to be aware that we need to work together. That’s why I’m not satisfied with the so-called ‘taxation’ that the US president tried to impose on the planet overnight.”
The president argued that each country should export and import what it wants “without anyone trying to diminish the sovereignty of any country.”
“Trade protectionism can lead to war, as has happened so many times in human history.”
Lula defended student exchanges between the two countries: “They [Brazilian students] say it’s difficult to learn Chinese. It’s difficult because it didn’t start [yet]. It was more difficult to build the Chinese wall and you laid the first stone, now that is done,” said Lula, applauded by the Chinese audience.
