On April 16, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a scathing rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to global diplomacy during a sharp interview with Spanish newspaper El País, ahead of his planned meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Barcelona. Lula’s comments centered on what he frames as a dangerous pattern of coercive, intimidation-driven foreign policy from the Trump administration, arguing that global leadership must be rooted in mutual respect rather than rule through fear.
In the interview, Lula specifically called out Trump’s April 7 threat to erase Iranian civilization amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, saying “Trump has no right to wake up in the morning and threaten an entire country. He was not elected to do that, and the U.S. Constitution does not grant him that authority.” The Brazilian leader framed Trump’s foreign policy as a fundamentally deceptive project, one rooted in the false assumption that Washington’s military and economic power gives it an inherent right to dictate global rules to other nations.
“No person or country has the right to spread fear among others,” Lula emphasized. “Powerful nations carry a greater responsibility to uphold and preserve global peace, not to undermine it.” Lula, who has positioned himself as a leader committed to dialogue and mutual respect, also addressed the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela, calling for fully free and sovereign elections that are free from any United States interference. His comments came in response to a January 3 surprise raid by U.S. special forces that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Lula made clear that the United States has no legitimate claim to govern Venezuela, saying “It is neither normal nor democratic for a foreign power to assume it can control the future of another sovereign nation. This has no place in the modern international order.”
The tensions between Lula and Trump stretch back more than a decade, with deep political divides tying the two leaders’ domestic rivals together. Lula’s main opponent in Brazil’s most recent presidential election was far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of Trump who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for his role in an attempted coup against Brazil’s democratic government.
Now 80 years old, Lula also reflected on the advanced age of both he and the 79-year-old Trump, recalling the restraint he showed when Trump imposed steep tariffs on Brazilian goods and issued sanctions against judges involved in the criminal proceedings against Bolsonaro. Those measures were ultimately reversed after diplomatic pushback. Lula argued that mature, responsible diplomacy is the only appropriate path forward for relations between the two nations.
“Two major countries, led by two men in their 80s, need to approach each other with a great deal of maturity and intentional diplomacy,” Lula said.