Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva delivered a forceful indictment of the United States-led unipolar world order on Saturday, 19 April 2026, during a keynote address at the 1st Progressive Mobilization Meeting held in Barcelona, Spain. Speaking before an international audience, Lula condemned the structural inequalities of the current global system, asserting that the Global South is routinely “treated as the backyard of the great powers.”
The Brazilian head of state painted a stark picture of a world in which military expenditure takes precedence over human welfare. “Warlords drop bombs on women and children,” Lula declared, while billions of dollars are diverted towards weapons procurement rather than addressing the urgent crises of hunger, energy insecurity, and deteriorating public health that afflict the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Lula was unequivocal in his assessment that recent conflicts in the Middle East were built upon deliberate falsehoods. Invoking the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush, he challenged the foundational justification for that war with a pointed rhetorical question: “Where are Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons?” He extended his critique to the 2011 NATO-backed intervention in Libya, Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza — which he characterised as genocide — and Israeli bombardments of Lebanon.
The Brazilian president further turned his attention to the United States’ military posture towards Iran, questioning the legal and moral basis for any such intervention. “And now, the United States’ invasion of Iran — on what pretext?” he asked, underscoring what he described as a pattern of unilateral military aggression conducted without legitimate international mandate.
Beyond his condemnation of militarism, Lula put forward a constructive vision for a reformed multilateral order. He called for the restoration of the United Nations’ credibility and advocated for the construction of an international institutional framework in which developed and developing nations are afforded equal standing and genuine representation — a direct challenge to the asymmetries that have long defined the post-Second World War global architecture.
Lula’s remarks in Barcelona reflect a growing chorus of voices from the Global South demanding structural reform of international governance and an end to the era of interventionism that has left entire regions destabilised. His speech arrives at a moment of heightened geopolitical tension and serves as a rallying call for progressive and non-aligned movements worldwide.
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