September 18, 2026
Lula, Photo: Tom Molina/Bloomberg
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his concern on Wednesday about the situation in Cuba and stated that the island’s inhabitants do not deserve to face the current difficulties.
“Cubans do not deserve to be going through what they are going through,” the president said during a meeting at the Planalto Palace with evangelical leaders, according to Brasil 247.
Lula linked his reflection to the international situation and questioned the absence of a leadership that could be considered humanist on the world stage.
“The world today does not have a leadership that we can call humanist,” said the president, who also referred to the existing inequalities at a global level .
“There is a lot of inequality around the world, and we are fighting to make society outraged by it,” Lula declared.
The statements come amid growing complaints about the impact of the US blockade against Cuba, particularly on the population’s access to essential resources.
Last July, Brazil expressed its rejection of unilateral coercive measures before the United Nations General Assembly and expressed special concern about the humanitarian situation facing the island as a result of the more than 60-year-long US blockade, which intensified during the Donald Trump administration.
Brazil’s alternate permanent representative to the UN, Norberto Moretti, argued at the time that the measures against Cuba affect the daily lives of the population and cause particularly serious suffering for children, the elderly, and the sick.
Brazil’s position before the UN is part of a stance held by the Lula government, which has expressed its support for the Caribbean nation in various public forums and criticized the economic, commercial, and financial blockade.
“We must stop this blockade against Cuba and let Cubans live their lives. We cannot remain silent in the face of this,” the president said last April, during the closing of the IV Summit in Defense of Democracy held in Barcelona, Spain.
A few days later, in statements to the press in Germany, he again criticized that policy and assured that he is against any enclosure.
“It is a global disgrace that a country has not had the opportunity, after the Revolution, to decide its own destiny, with a power that imposes a blockade, an ideological blockade against Cuba,” he pointed out at the time.
Through his social media accounts, Lula announced that he met this Wednesday with evangelical pastors from Brazil, the United States, and Cuba “to discuss faith, social justice, the fight against hunger, racism and inequality, respect for democracy, and the promotion of peace.”
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English