The Empire's message to Lula, through the media, was clear: don't you dare develop Brazil.

All it took was for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Petrobras CEO Jean Paul Prates to announce the resumption of construction at the Abreu e Lima Refinery in Pernambuco for all the masks to fall. The supposedly democratic and civilized Brazilian corporate media closed ranks against a basic decision made by Petrobras and the Lula administration: to refine Brazilian oil in Brazil. This is the right move for several reasons. Not only because the work interrupted by Operation Car Wash needs to be completed, but also because it is much more efficient to process oil products in Brazil than to import them from other countries, such as Russia and the United States. Furthermore, by being present in both refining and distribution, as is expected to happen soon, Petrobras will be better positioned to charge prices consistent with a national development strategy and the protection of Brazilian consumers. In other words, a strategy of energy sovereignty, as defined by Minister Paulo Pimenta.

The unanimous reaction from outlets such as Globo, Folha de S. Paulo, CNN, and Estado de S. Paulo, as well as their trained columnists, suggests that the Lula administration has entered forbidden territory. Since these media outlets are ideological apparatuses of imperialism in Brazil, dedicated to defending international interests, not the Brazilian people, a clear message is being conveyed: President Lula cannot dare to develop Brazil, breaking with the agro-financial model that gained traction in Brazil after the 2016 coup d'état, interrupted by Lula's return to power in 2022.

The coup forces certainly imagined that President Lula, scalded by 580 days of political imprisonment in Curitiba, would not deviate from his script. He would govern hamstrung by restrictions imposed by a conservative Congress and by measures approved during the Temer-Bolsonaro administration, such as the autonomy of the Central Bank and changes to Petrobras' bylaws. However, with the positive economic results achieved in the first year of his third term, Lula gained legitimacy to advance the process of resuming strategic investments and implementing a national development strategy.

In a normal, sovereign, and independent country, the government's initiatives would not only be celebrated by the press but also debated in detail. For example, it would be natural for the press to discuss an industrialization strategy for the Northeast based on the investments being made in Pernambuco. But that's not how things work in Brazil. In a still colonized country, the corporate press acts as a force that sabotages national development. Incidentally, it's worth emphasizing that President Lula wasn't arrested because a group of prosecutors and a suspicious former judge decided to jail him. Lula was arrested, with the support of the entire anti-patriotic media, so that a national development project would be defeated—or at least postponed.

Since Lula, at 78 years old, has convinced himself that he has nothing left to lose and that his life's mission is to rebuild everything destroyed by the consortium of coup plotters and Lava Jato supporters, every precaution is essential. This weekend's corporate media editorials make it clear that the hybrid war against Brazil is not over, and it will be necessary to vigorously confront all forces opposing national reconstruction. The Brazilian population must be informed and educated about what is happening so that we are not surprised by another coup, which would once again have the oil issue at its core.