The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said that Brazil is willing to sign agreements involving critical minerals and rare earths “with anyone who wants to build, help us, take technology and share it with us”. But he reinforced his desire for the transformation phase of these minerals into high-value-added products to be carried out in Brazil.
“We will build partnerships with anyone who wants to build, help us, bring technology and share with us, but no one, other than Brazil, will own our mineral wealth”, stated the president in a press conference alongside the president of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, this Friday, 17th, in Barcelona. “We are willing to make agreements with all countries, and the transformation process will take place in Brazil. We will not repeat with rare earths what happened with iron ore”, he added.
The governments of Brazil and Spain signed an agreement on critical minerals this Friday. There has been no disclosure, to date, of the full content of the signed text.
Lula was asked exactly this, but avoided giving details. He repeated the speech he has been giving in recent weeks that Brazil needs to use rare earths for the country’s economic development and that this is a “national security issue”.
“Brazil, if we don’t take advantage of this phase of the energy revolution that the world is fighting for so much and of rare earths and critical minerals, we will waste an opportunity. Brazil has already missed the gold cycle, in which they took everything and made many countries rich”, he stated. “We cannot now allow the wealth that nature has given us to not make us rich,” said the president.
