President Lula’s press statement on the occasion of the State Visit of President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa

My dear friend Ramaphosa [Cyril], President of South Africa.

This is the fourth time President Ramaphosa has come to Brazil. This time, however, it is a special occasion because it is his first State Visit to our country.

South Africa and Brazil are working to bring our continents closer together.

We are partners in BRICS, in IBAS, and in the G20.

We share the struggle for a more balanced and representative global order, based on international law and multilateralism.

This morning, we held a productive meeting in which we reviewed bilateral, regional, and multilateral issues.

Today, our countries are signing two instruments that will strengthen our economic, trade, and political ties.

We are renewing for four years the Action Plan for the Tourism sector, intending to expand leisure and business travel between our countries.

Responding directly to the expectations of Brazilian and South African entrepreneurs, we concluded an agreement on Trade and Investment between Apex-Brasil and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition of South Africa.

When President Ramaphosa and I met on the margins of the G20 late last year, in Johannesburg, we noted that the trade relationship is not commensurate with the potential of our economies.

Annual trade between Brazil and South Africa has been stagnant for almost 20 years, reaching just over USD 2.3 billion today.

Brazil has 215 million inhabitants, and South Africa has 62 million inhabitants. South Africa is the most industrialized country on the African continent, and we are the most industrialized in Latin America. Therefore, there is no political explanation for why our trade should not exceed USD 10 billion.

Something is missing in our relationship, dear friend. You are one of the few presidents I can call a comrade, because you know the factory floor as I know it.

I believe that President Ramaphosa’s visit now will allow us to rethink how we engage with South Africa, because we have many similarities, we have much to learn from South Africa, and we also have much to share with South Africa. We have areas such as energy, where Brazil has expertise in renewable energy that can be shared with South Africa. We have much to learn and share in science and technology. We have much to learn and share in agriculture. Brazil is a major agricultural country, Brazil is a country with extraordinary potential, and all of this can be placed at the service of relations with South Africa, especially in the cultural sphere. Our Minister Margareth Menezes is here. In addition to being a minister, she is also a singer, a very important and very famous singer. You should have seen her dressed for Carnival this year; you were not here, you did not see it.

So we need to take some of our culture to South Africa and bring South African culture to Brazil.We cannot overlook the fact that there is no border between us. Have you noticed that South Africa and Brazil have no border? Look at the small stretch of ocean in front of us.

I was telling Ramaphosa that if he wants, he can sit on the veranda of his house, I sit on the veranda of my house, and we greet each other from there, because there is only one ocean separating us; in truth, it does not separate us. The sea was made to unite us. What separates us, in fact, is human political behavior, because the sea was made to bring us closer together.

We also decided to accelerate the conclusion of negotiations for an Agreement on Cooperation and Investment Facilitation.

In agribusiness, we want to move forward in sharing good practices and collaborate on animal health through the Agricultural Cooperation Working Group.

The promulgation by Brazil of the Agreement on Cooperation in Defense Matters will open the possibility for new joint projects.

South Africa, which is already a destination for EMBRAER aircraft on the African continent, may also become a relevant market for the defense industry.

Here, President Ramaphosa, there is something important. Here in South America we see ourselves as a region of peace. No one here has nuclear bombs, no one here has atomic bombs, our drones are used for agriculture, for technological purposes and not for war. We therefore think of defense as deterrence. But I do not know whether President Ramaphosa realizes that if we do not prepare ourselves in matters of defense, one day someone may invade us.

This is an area where Brazil has needs similar to those of South Africa and where we must combine our potential and see what we can produce together, what we can build together. We do not need to keep buying from the arms merchants, we can produce ourselves. What is needed is for us to convince ourselves that no one will help us except ourselves.

So the defense area is extremely important, President Ramaphosa, for us to work together. It is very important that your Minister of Defense is here, she will meet with my Minister of Defense at five o’clock this afternoon. In fact they will have lunch together, sitting across from each other at the table. I hope they talk a great deal about bringing Brazil and South Africa closer together in the field of defense.

Our countries also have great potential in the area of critical minerals, which are essential for the energy and digital transition under way.

We want to rethink the role of natural resource exploitation and strengthen value chains within our territories.

One important point, Ramaphosa, is that we need a concrete survey of the critical minerals and rare earths that South Africa possesses.

Brazil currently knows the potential of only 30 percent of its territory, and we have many resources. And the world has already been informed that Brazil will not treat rare earths and critical minerals in the same way as iron ore was treated, by selling raw ore and buying finished products at one hundred times the price.

No, from now on, partnerships must be structured to carry out the transformation process here in Brazil. And we can work together with South Africa and establish joint companies to explore these resources. Enough already, they have taken all our silver, all our gold, all our diamonds, all our iron ore, what else do they want to take? When will we learn that God placed all this wealth here for us and we keep giving it away? This is a matter of political decision. We who have critical minerals and rare earths must take advantage of them so that they become a source of prosperity and knowledge, so that our people can live better.

The second issue is climate change.

I thanked South Africa for its active participation in COP30, which was an extraordinary conference.

President Ramaphosa and I share the commitment to an ambitious climate agenda that combines environmental preservation, economic growth, and social justice.

I also invited the country to join the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, TFFF, launched in Belém.

This is important, President Ramaphosa, because for the first time, the countries of the Global South are not asking rich countries for money. We created a fund, and this fund will be invested; those who invest in it will receive a return, and part of that return will be used to finance countries that keep their forests standing. In other words, we do this because we do not believe in the promises of rich countries.

In Copenhagen, in 2009, they presented a proposal to donate USD 100 billion per year, and from 2009 to 2026 those USD 100 billion have not materialized. Now the figure mentioned is USD 1.7 trillion. Whoever did not deliver 100 will not deliver one trillion.

That is why we created the innovative proposal of the Tropical Forests Fund.

We discussed the contributions of the sequence of presidencies of Brazil and South Africa in the G20 to defend these and other priorities of developing countries.

The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and the proposal for an International Panel on Inequality are examples of what we can build when we work together.

The capacity of the G20 to address the major issues of our time must be preserved.

This means that all members must participate fully in the Group’s activities.

In this sense, I reiterated Brazil’s support for South Africa’s participation throughout this year.

A G20 without South Africa would be another forum, not the G20 we created in 2008.

Our bilateral partnership also brings us closer together in confronting extremism in politics.

At the invitation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain, President Ramaphosa and I will meet again in Barcelona on April 18 for the fourth Meeting in Defense of Democracy.

We want to bring our countries closer together on issues such as the regulation of the digital environment, artificial intelligence, and the strengthening of quality information sources, including both domestic policies and coordination to reinforce this agenda in multilateral forums.

South Africa and Brazil share the conviction that the Global South must have an active voice in major international decisions.

I expressed to President Ramaphosa my deep concern about the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, which represents a serious threat to international peace and security and has wide-ranging humanitarian and economic impacts.

These conflicts produce harmful effects on energy, input, and food supply chains.

The most vulnerable, especially women and children, suffer the most severe consequences of these crises.

Dialogue and diplomacy are the only viable paths to building a lasting solution.

It is important to remember that because of the war with Iran, fuel prices are already rising in almost every part of the world. Oil prices are increasing sharply, and this trend will affect all countries.

My dear friends,

The South African poet Dennis Brutus, in his poem “There Will Come a Time”, dreamed of a moment when borders would be less important than the “radiance of friendship”.

I want once again to thank my friend Ramaphosa for his visit to Brazil.

If there is a radiance in the friendship that brings us closer, I want you to know that on Brazil’s side the affection we have for South Africa and the respect we have for your work and for the work of South African presidents deserve that Brazil devote itself even more so that South Africa is seen with greater interest by Brazilian entrepreneurs, intellectuals, artists and politicians, so that we stop looking only to Europe and the United States and begin to look to those who are close to us, those who resemble us, those who face the same challenges and therefore share the same path forward.

Dear friend, be certain of one thing. We will meet again in Barcelona, possibly in the G7, in the BRICS, and later this year at the G20.

You will return to South Africa tomorrow, leaving here an old comrade who will miss you greatly.

A warm embrace, and thank you very much.