Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on 15 November that Brazil wants to produce batteries and chips at home rather than sell raw materials, according to the Brazilian presidency’s account of his statement to the press in Manila, after the opening of the 49th ASEAN summit.
Brazil imported $7.2 billion of integrated circuits from January to October 2026, up 55% on the same months of 2025, by our arithmetic from official Comex Stat trade data. It exported $112 million of them in the same ten months.
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The key insight: As we read the two sources together, Lula’s aim and the trade data point the same way: Brazil wants to make chips, and its chip imports rose 55% in the first ten months of 2026, by our arithmetic from Comex Stat. The statement pairs that aim with an invitation on critical minerals, the input side Brazil already has.
The presidency published his words in Portuguese: “Nós não queremos vender, nós queremos produzir as baterias no Brasil, produzir o chip no Brasil, porque o Brasil não quer ser mais exportador de matéria-prima ou de commodities, o Brasil quer ser exportador de conhecimento e de inteligência”. In English: “We do not want to sell, we want to produce the batteries in Brazil, produce the chip in Brazil, because Brazil no longer wants to be an exporter of raw materials or commodities, Brazil wants to be an exporter of knowledge and intelligence” (our translation).
He made the remark while inviting “todos os países do mundo” to take part in the exploration, transformation and industrialisation of critical minerals and rare earths in Brazil, the presidency’s account shows. It says the proposal is to attract countries and companies willing to invest in Brazil and transfer technology.
Lula also said Brazil “precisa sair do rol dos países eternamente em vias de desenvolvimento e se transformar num país desenvolvido”, which in English reads: “Brazil needs to leave the list of countries eternally developing and become a developed country” (our translation). The presidency lists scientific and technological knowledge, the digitalindustry, the green industry and the creative economy as the areas for investment he named.
The quote circulated on X through a video clip posted by the account Clash Report on 15 November. The wording above is the presidency’s own transcription.
Brazil’s cumulative imports of integrated circuits (heading 8542), US$ FOB, January to October 2026 vs 2025, from Comex Stat (Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services), queried 15 November 2026. The 55.1% rise is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
Brazilian President Lula:
We want to produce batteries in Brazil, produce chips in Brazil, because Brazil no longer wants to be an exporter of raw materials or commodities.
Brazil wants to be an exporter of knowledge and intelligence.
And Brazil has the potential to make that leap forward.
The news account Clash Report posted this video clip at 07:14 UTC on 15 November, with an English rendering of Lula saying Brazil wants to produce batteries and chips rather than export raw materials or commodities. The piece quotes the Portuguese wording from the Brazilian presidency’s own account of the Manila press statement, and sets it beside Comex Stat data on Brazil’s chip imports.
The Policy Around the Statement
The invitation sits on a minerals law. Decree 13.118 of 16 September 2026 regulates Law 15.506, which sets up Brazil’s National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals, the presidency said on 12 November. Its stated aim covers research, mining, processing, transformation and recycling of those minerals in Brazil.
A further decree, published on 12 November, added the environment, mines and energy, and foreign affairs ministries to the executive committee of the national council for the industrialisation of critical minerals. That committee approves projects, according to the presidency.
A day earlier, after meeting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Lula said in a written statement that the two countries “têm muito a ganhar com a integração de cadeias de minerais críticos, semicondutores e microeletrônica”, meaning they have much to gain from integrating supply chains of critical minerals, semiconductors and microelectronics (our translation). The same statement backed “uma governança robusta, ética e responsável para a inteligência artificial”.
In his ASEAN opening speech, Lula said excessive concentration of technological power is a growing threat to societies and that big technology companies’ designs cannot override the sovereignty of states, the presidency reported. Our piece on Brazil’s election court fining Meta covers a recent case of Brazil’s institutions and a US platform.
What the Trade Data Show
Comex Stat, the trade statistics service of Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services, records $7.20 billion of imports under heading 8542, integrated circuits and electronic microassemblies, from January to October 2026. The same months of 2025 came to $4.65 billion. The rise is 55.1%, by our arithmetic.
The ten-month 2026 total is already 30% above the $5.55 billion Brazil imported in all of 2025, by our arithmetic. Monthly imports peaked at $853 million in August 2026.
Exports under the same heading were $112 million from January to October 2026, so imports ran at about 65 times exports, by our arithmetic. In 2025 the ratio was about 93 to 1, on exports of $60 million.
For scale, Comex Stat puts Brazil’s 2025 exports of crude oil at $44.5 billion, soybeans at $43.5 billion and iron ore at $29.0 billion. Our piece on the minerals inside AI data centers follows the same materials from the buyer’s side.
The Structural Read
As we read the presidency’s account, the offer is framed as an exchange: foreign countries and companies are invited into the transformation of critical minerals, and the stated condition is investment in Brazil and technology transfer.
As we read the Comex Stat figures, the gap is wide on both sides of the ledger: about $65 of integrated circuits imported for every $1 exported in 2026 so far, against 2025 commodity exports led by crude oil at $44.5 billion, by our arithmetic.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Manila, 15 Nov 2026, as published by the Brazilian presidency
“o Brasil quer ser exportador de conhecimento e de inteligência”
Three Implications
FOR CHIP AND BATTERY MAKERS The presidency says Lula invited all countries to take part in the exploration, transformation and industrialisation of critical minerals in Brazil, with investment and technology transfer as the stated aim.
FOR THE POLICY TIMELINE Decree 13.118 of 16 September 2026 regulates Law 15.506 on critical and strategic minerals, and a decree published on 12 November added three ministries to the committee that approves projects, the presidency said.
FOR ASIA TIES In a 14 November statement with the Philippines, Lula named critical minerals, semiconductors and microelectronics as supply chains to integrate, the presidency reported.
The analysis says: “The digital economy rests on a physical foundation that most people in that economy never see.”
As we read it, Lula’s statement is a bid to move Brazil along that physical chain, from selling minerals to making batteries and chips, per the presidency’s account. The analysis was published in December 2025 and does not discuss Brazil’s plans.
What Is Not Established
The presidency’s account of the Manila statement that we read does not name a chip plant, an investor, a budget or a date. Lula’s remark describes an aim and an invitation, not a project.
Heading 8542 covers integrated circuits and microassemblies only; it does not count chips inside imported phones, computers or cars. The trade data do not say why imports rose in 2026. The 2026 figures run to October, the latest month in Comex Stat when we queried it.
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Lula said in Manila on 15 November that Brazil wants to produce batteries and chips instead of exporting raw materials, and invited other countries to help industrialise its critical minerals. Brazil’s chip import bill reached $7.2 billion in the first ten months of 2026, 55% above a year earlier, by our arithmetic from Comex Stat.
A note on sourcing. Lula’s Manila remarks are quoted from the Brazilian presidency’s (Planalto) article of 15 November, which we read in full in Portuguese; the 14 November statement after the Marcos meeting and the 12 November decree note are also Planalto articles read in full, and the ASEAN opening speech is cited from Planalto’s report of it. Trade figures are official Comex Stat data for heading 8542, which we queried on 15 November.
Clash Report’s X clip flagged the remark. English renderings of Portuguese quotes are our translations; the 55% rise and the ratios are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
