Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended the sovereignty of Venezuela and Cuba in the face of increasing U.S. military pressure in the Caribbean . Speaking at the 16th Annual Congress of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), held at the Ulysses Guimarães Convention Center in Brasilia, the president stated that "the Venezuelan people are the masters of their own destiny, and no president of another country should dictate what Venezuela or Cuba will be like . "

Lula da Silva denounced the recent attacks carried out by the United States on vessels in international waters near the Venezuelan coast , alleging links to drug trafficking. He also greeted the Cuban delegation present and once again condemned the island's inclusion on the unilateral list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Elsewhere in his speech, the president noted that the left must engage in profound self-criticism to confront the rise of the far right. Lula da Silva attributed past electoral defeats to a failure of communication , noting that the left's discourse is often "far from the level of understanding of millions and millions of people."

Reflecting on current challenges, Lula da Silva questioned how figures like the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro came to power. In this regard, he warned that the left "must stop talking only to itself" and seek to convince the population that it has not yet been won over. In this regard, he considered that democracy has been defeated in various countries in the region because it failed to fulfill its role of guaranteeing equality, social well-being, food, wages, education, and human rights.

Amid cheering, the former labor leader ended his speech by calling for a more measured discourse directed at the Brazilian working class, not the financial elites. The challenge, he concluded, is to turn ideals into concrete actions and reconnect with those outside the political spectrum of the left so that it can grow in a decisive and practical way.