Venezuela did not pay debt because of Brazilian government, says Lula

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said this Thursday (June 29, 2023) that Venezuela has not paid its debt to Brazil because the Brazilian government “closed the doors” to the neighboring country in the last 4 years. He also defended that public banks and the State lend money for works in other countries to develop the region, as is done by developed nations.

“It is true that Venezuela did not pay because the Brazilian government closed its doors to Venezuela. It was practically 4 years without relationship”he said in an interview with Rádio Gaúcha.

Lula said that he spoke with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to resume the country’s debt payments. The Brazilian chief executive also stated that Cuba will also pay what it owes because both countries are “good payers”.

“I talked to Maduro now and I said: ‘Maduro, we need to start paying off the debt’. And he will get it right. He’ll get it right. Cuba will get it right and everyone will get it right, because they are all good payers and never owed Brazil”he declared.

Maduro said in May, during a visit to Brazil, that he will create a commission to determine the size of the debt with Brazil and resume payments. In January, the amount of the debt was almost US$ 700 million (about R$ 3.4 billion).

Even with the lack of payments, Lula defended that Brazil lend money to other countries to earn with the payment of interest and with the purchase of Brazilian products by these nations.

“When we finance a project abroad, we are exporting engineering, we are exporting machinery and we are making a lot of money beyond what we will receive”he stated.

MADURO

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, 60, commands an autocratic regime with no guarantees of fundamental freedoms. He keeps, for example, people imprisoned for what he considers “political crimes”. There are also restrictions described in OAS reports (on the “illegitimate appointment” the National Electoral Council for an illegitimate National Assembly) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (October 2022, November 2022 and March 2023).