Lula at FAO: "Cuba Knows How to Produce — They're Being Denied the Right To"

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva argued that the island’s food crisis cannot be explained simply by production problems but with more than 60 years of U.S. economic warfare against Cuba.

Speaking at the opening of the FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, Lula’s  comments come at a time when Cuba is facing a deep economic crisis, marked by food shortages and long blackouts, which have intensified under the Trump administration's blockade of oil shipments.

TRANSCRIPT

“Cuba is not going hungry because it doesn’t know how to produce. Cuba is not going hungry because it doesn’t know how to build its own energy capacity,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during a FAO conference in Brasilia.

“Cuba is going hungry because they do not want Cuba to have access to the things that everyone should have the right to,”