Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Spain on April 17 for two days of meetings with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and to participate in two meetings in Barcelona: the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy, and the Global Progressive Mobilization. Earlier this week, AP reported, Lula issued a video expressing “deep solidarity” with Pope Leo XIV in his public brawl with Trump.
Lula said about his visit to Spain: “Brazil and Spain are side by side in the trenches together. We are an example that it is possible to find solutions to problems without giving into the empty promises of extremism.” AP notes that Sánchez “just returned from meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his fourth trip to Beijing in just over three years.”
Lula gave an interview to El País, published on April 16 in preparation for his visit, in which he stated that “[Trump] is playing a very dangerous game. He operates on the premise that American economic, military, and technological power dictates the rules of the game. Ultimately, it ends up creating problems for the United States.… When he decided to attack Iran, I don’t know if he realized that fuel prices would rise and that the people would be the ones to pay the price.”
The IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy will reportedly include the presence of European Council President António Costa, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and the leaders of other countries from Uruguay and Lithuania to Ghana and Albania. “If the presidents of Mexico and South Africa are coming, that means our group is growing,” Lula said.
Otherwise, 3,000 people are expected at the second meeting, including U.S. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy.
