Speaking on Wednesday (9) at the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) criticized US policy targeting the countries of the region. “Our autonomy is once again threatened. Attempts to restore the old hegemonies hang over our region. Freedom and self-determination are the first victims of a world without multilaterally agreed rules,” Lula said.
“Migrants are criminalized and deported under degrading conditions. Arbitrary tariffs destabilize the international economy and raise prices. History teaches us that trade wars have no winners,” said the Brazilian president.
Trump announced 10% tariffs on imports from Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Taxes of 15% and 18% were applied to Venezuela and Nicaragua, respectively. Mexico was not included on Trump’s list but faces 25% tariffs on the automotive sector and duties on steel and aluminum.
Faced with this scenario, Lula stressed the need for unity among the Celac countries. “If we remain separate, the Latin American and Caribbean community runs the risk of returning to the status of a zone of influence in a new division of the globe between superpowers. The moment demands that we put our differences aside. We need to recover the pluralist and pragmatic spirit that united us in the early 2000s,” said the Brazilian president.
Celac, which currently has 33 members, was created in 2011 fostered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). In addition to the progressive governments of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, the summit will also be attended by the presidents of Bolivia, Luis Arce; Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel; Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo; Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi; and Haiti, Leslie Voltaire.
The prime ministers of Guyana, Mark Phillips, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, will also attend the conference.
“Latin America and the Caribbean must redefine its place in the emerging new world order,” said Lula. At the summit, the Brazilian president also defended a female candidate for Secretary General of the United Nations (UN).
In the speech that opened the summit on Wednesday (9), Honduran President Xiomara Castro also called for Latin American countries to unite at a time when Trump is “redrawing” the economic map.
“We can’t keep walking apart when the world is changing,” said Castro in his opening speech at the event, in which he said that now the “United States is redrawing its economic map without asking which peoples are left behind.”
