Lula Defends Nuclear Submarine, Says Brazil Cannot Keep Its “Head Bowed” Forever – 20/08/2026 – Brazil

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) defended on Wednesday (19) the completion of the Navy’s nuclear submarine as a matter of national sovereignty, saying Brazil cannot keep its “head bowed” forever. In a speech during a visit to the Aramar Nuclear Industrial Center in Iperó, São Paulo, he promised to secure the funds “once and for all” to complete the project — a statement made nearly three months after the government cut R$4.4 billion ($849,000) from the Defense Ministry’s budget.

Lula said that “we have to be prepared so that they know we will have the strength to be able to say no. That we will have a voice to say: let’s compete. What we cannot do is have a country this size with its head bowed forever.” He also said that completing the submarine would bring Brazil closer to securing a seat on the UN Security Council, a longstanding goal of the Workers’ Party’s foreign policy.

Defense Minister José Múcio Monteiro said the project would allow Brazil to become a technology exporter and called Lula “the great helmsman of these submarines that will come out of here.” Regarding Petrobras President Magda Chambriard, Lula said that, following the oil discovery in the Equatorial Margin, “this woman looks like the queen of Saudi Arabia.”

The visit also included the construction site of the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor, which, according to the government, is expected to quadruple the capacity of Brazil’s public health system (SUS) to produce cancer medicines. Aramar was established by the Navy in 1986 to develop nuclear technology. In recent months, Lula has stepped up his rhetoric on sovereignty and defense, citing Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland and the Panama Canal, as well as the nuclear weapons programs of Pakistan, India, North Korea, China and Russia.