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Exporting Autocracy: Trump and His Attempt to Turn Brazil into a Showcase for Right-Wing Supremacy
Brazil's election represents a clash between two worlds.
Oct 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s Latin America policy has seemed, at times, detached from genuine US national interests in the region and increasingly driven by his personal preferences. He now appears determined to transform Brazil into a “political laboratory” where a right-wing triumph would serve as definitive proof of the superiority of his authoritarian worldview.
Ambition Rules
If anyone doubted the scope of Donald Trump’s ambitions, they need only look at his attempts to dictate terms to the largest economy in Latin America. To Trump, Brazil isn’t a sovereign nation with a rich culture and complex history. It’s merely a convenient staging ground for expanding his ideological influence.
In his worldview, the Brazilian political landscape largely mirrors that of the United States. This makes it a suitable "testing ground" for the geopolitical and domestic policies Trump and his supporters will try to adapt and apply to the United States.
It’s not hard to see how Trump is trying to install his own personally loyal "king" in Brazil. With surgical precision, he's attempting to remove anything progressive from Brazilian politics. He's striving to reshape Brazilian politics so that the voice of the people is drowned out by the noise of right-wing populism, and democratic institutions merely serve as window dressing for one man’s will.
Mirror in the Tropics
At the core of this strategy lies Trump's profound fixation on the Bolsonaro family: former President Jair Bolsonaro, presently incarcerated for his role in a coup attempt, and his son Flavio, a prominent right-wing candidate who emerged victorious in the first round of elections on October 4th and is set to compete against current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
To the occupant of the Oval Office, Bolsonaro isn’t just an ally; he's Trump’s political reflection, his "tropical doppelgänger." Through this troubling narcissism, Trump sees confirmation that his tactics of intimidation, aggressive rhetoric, and disregard for the truth are a universal recipe for power.
Trump and MAGA Republicans' drive to promote conservative supremacy is turning US foreign policy into an instrument of ideological dominance. They are intent on proving to the world once again that conservative ideology is the only correct path. To this end, Brazil must become the main trophy—a living testament to the idea that authoritarianism equals efficiency and everything else is a mistake.
Attacking Lula: A Contest of Hope
In this context, Trump's criticism of Lula does not appear as political debate, but as blatant aggression. Trump rejects the Brazilian leader precisely because he champions everything his American counterpart disdains: empathy, social justice, and faith in the greater good.
This ignores the fact that Lula has become a beacon of hope for millions of Brazilians while Trump sows discord. For this reason, Lula’s return to power in 2022 was not just a political victory, but a triumph of humanity over cynicism.
It’s difficult to remain indifferent when witnessing Lula's consistent defense of the Amazon rainforest—the “lungs of the planet”—which was brutally exploited under right-wing governments at the behest of corporate interests. While Brazilian right-wing politicians and their supporter Trump see nature merely as a resource for enrichment, Lula fights for humanity's ecological survival.
The Brazilian president's unwavering support for the LGBTQ+ community and minorities in the face of aggressive conservatism is an act of true democratic leadership, in contrast to the narrow vision of "right-wing supremacy."
The Destructive Influence of the Right
Under these circumstances, it’s no surprise that issues such as confronting extremism in politics, combating electoral violence, and bolstering communities against disinformation have come to the forefront of US-Brazil relations.However, as events surrounding Brazil's election campaign show, Trump and his allies, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are hardly concerned with regional stability. By promoting right-wing popolism supremacy, Trump is attempting to blur the lines between governance and his personal ambitions through his reflection in Bolsonaro.
This has already prompted a response from Democratic members of Congress, who sent Rubio a letter criticizing the White House’s blatant attempts at interfering with and potentially undermining Brazil's elections. The administration must stop using economic and political pressure to weaken Brazil’s democratic institutions. Such activity is seriously damaging the bilateral partnership.
Cautious Optimism
Brazil's election campaign clearly demonstrates a clash between two worlds. One world is embodied by Trump, Bolsonaro, and right-wing conservatives. It is a world of cold calculation, hierarchy, and dominance. The other world is championed by Lula. It is a world of equality, ecology, and democracy. Republicans who want to see democracy thrive must recognize that turning Brazil into a "political laboratory" for the Trump era is a dead end.
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UN Treaty Could Mean Justice for Communities Affected by Corporate Power
As the United Nations Human Rights Council prepares for its 12th round of negotiations on a Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights next week, a proposed pulp mill in Brazil offers a test of whether corporate accountability will finally extend beyond the factory gate.
Oct 09, 2026
In Guaíba, in southern Brazil, the effects of CMPC’s pulp mill enter people’s homes. Residents living nearby describe a rotten-egg smell from reduced sulfur compounds that irritates the eyes and nose and causes headaches and nausea. They live with noise and powerful vibrations, in some areas around the clock. Residents report cracks in their homes and disrupted sleep while sawdust and even foam from the mill’s effluent treatment plant fall on their houses. Soot and dust cover laundry hanging on clotheslines and cars parked in driveways, making it standard practice for the company to pay for the washing of neighborhood vehicles.
And then there are the accidents.
Workers have suffered poisoning and injuries, including fatal incidents. Chlorine leaks have affected residents living nearby, while communities still do not have an adequate emergency plan for a major accident.
Now CMPC Wants to Build Another Pulp Mill
Chilean pulp and paper company and monoculture tree plantation CMPC plans to build the so-called Natureza Project in Barra do Ribeiro, Rio Grande do Sul. The project isn’t simply a factory. It encompasses the expansion of massive eucalyptus monoculture plantations, roads, port infrastructure, dredging, transmission lines, and increased transportation, with production projected at millions of metric ton of pulp annually.
Indigenous and environmental organisations therefore question why the territorial, social, water-related, and ecological impacts of this tree monoculture expansion are not fully incorporated into the project’s assessment process.
And this is all happening as the industry continues to utilize an intense corporate lobby, leading to serious legal setbacks in corporate environmental regulation at the state and national levels. In 2023, environmental zoning regulations for forestry in Rio Grande do Sul were relaxed, allowing for the expansion of plantations from 1.2 million hectares to 4 million. And in 2024, forestry was excluded from the list of potentially polluting activities that consume environmental resources in Brazil, exempting tree monocultures from any type of environmental permit.
CMPC also actively greenwashes their activities, going as far as to fund local football tournaments. We see this as a broader scheme by corporations to mitigate pushback against their operations.
The Impact Assessment Can’t Stop at the Pulp Mill
The proposed mill would discharge industrial effluent into Lake Guaíba, a crucial water body near Porto Alegre and other municipalities with a population of around 1.3 million people. Among the issues raised publicly are water quality; cumulative effects on a watershed already under pressure; and impacts related to dredging and navigation, mining, and the discharge of wastewater and industrial effluents (including those from the company’s existing factory). The volume of water consumed by the company and the pollutants discharged into Lake Guaíba would be equivalent to the water consumption and wastewater production of the entire population of the region. Possible contaminants include dioxins, extremely toxic chemical compounds that can enter the food chain and reach humans through the consumption of fish.
Lake Guaíba also supports fishing communities, contributes to drinking-water supplies, and is already under enormous ecological pressure. Asking whether a new factory complies with the technical conditions of a permit is therefore a narrower question than asking whether the entire corporate project is compatible with the rights of the people and ecosystems that are forced to absorb its consequences.
The Natureza Project presents a practical test for a global principle: Corporate human rights regulation must reflect the reality of corporate power.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office says at least eight Mbyá Guarani villages fall within the project’s direct area of influence and 18 within its indirect area. As a result, its recommendations stress that consultation under International Labor Organization Convention 169 cannot be replaced by informal meetings or an Indigenous component study. Consultation must be free, prior, and informed and must respect the communities’ own protocols and decision-making processes. But the struggle goes beyond the consultation; it is about ensuring that communities have the right to say NO to the project.
That distinction is fundamental. Consultation is not a box to tick after the project has effectively been decided.
The proposed mill is also inseparable from a longer history. CMPC has been linked to the Laja-San Rosendo massacre, in which 19 people were murdered following Augusto Pinochet’s military coup. In 2021, the Concepción Court of Appeals convicted a former CMPC employee as an accomplice in the killings, finding coordination between state agents and company personnel. That history underscores why corporate accountability cannot be reduced to whether a company publishes sustainability reports or complies with a narrow administrative procedure.
The UN Binding Treaty
The proposed legally binding instrument is intended to address precisely the gaps that arise when corporate impacts cross borders, jurisdictions, and stages of production. A meaningful treaty should require companies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and address human rights risks associated with the entire chain of activities under its control or linked to its project.
For a project like Natureza, that would mean assessing the mill alongside plantations, roads, ports, dredging, water use, emissions, and affected communities. It would mean treating Indigenous consultation as a substantive right rather than a procedural obstacle. It would mean ensuring access to information, participation, justice, and effective remedy.
Most importantly, it would clarify that responsibility cannot disappear simply because an impact occurs several steps away from the factory itself. That is the accountability gap the UN negotiations must confront.
The Natureza Project presents a practical test for a global principle: Corporate human rights regulation must reflect the reality of corporate power.
If a company’s business model transforms land, water, livelihoods, and Indigenous territories across an entire region, then the law must be capable of seeing that whole picture.
Anything less leaves the people bearing the consequences to carry the burden of a business model they never designed.
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Thousands March Against Far Right in Brazil Ahead of Runoff Election
Demonstrators marched after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused the Trump administration of meddling in the election in favor of Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro.
Oct 07, 2026
Days after elections in which right-wing Brazilian candidates won a significant number of seats and as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva headed to a runoff with Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, students on Wednesday marched through Rio de Janeiro in support of the progressive Lula—and expressed fear over the growing influence of the far right in Brazil.
Thousands of Brazilians joined the student-led demonstrations, where some carried pictures of Bolsonaro made to look like Adolf Hitler and signs that read, "No to the father, no to the son" and "Never again Bolsonaro."
Bolsonaro, a senator who represents the right-wing Liberal Party, is the son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt after his election loss in 2022. Bolsonaro's supporters stormed government buildings on January 8, 2023, and the former president—a close ally of President Donald Trump—was found guilty of spreading misinformation about the country's voting system and encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol.
At Wednesday's protest, one supporter of Lula expressed concern for the safety of her transgender wife and remembered the fear many lived with during the coronavirus pandemic, when the elder Bolsonaro refused to take part in basic public health precautions like social distancing and mask-wearing, sent unproven drugs to communities, and spread misinformation about vaccines. Nearly 600,000 people died of Covid-19 across Brazil—the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States.
"I remember my family's lives being at risk during the pandemic," Alice Carneiro told Agence France-Presse in Rio.
Bolsonaro won 47% of the vote on Sunday, while Lula, of the Worker's Party, had 45%. According to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in the US, the Brazilian economy saw growth of 8.9% from 2022-25. Lula took office in 2023. His government has passed a new minimum wage law, expanded maternity leave, and increased benefits for low-income families.
The report also notes that high interest rates have raised borrowing costs for households and have increased the rate of delinquency.
Voters will go to the polls for the runoff election on October 25.
Ahead of the first round of voting this week, Lula's campaign accused the Trump administration of interfering in the country's elections.
The US abruptly shut down consular services in Brazil last Friday, citing unspecified "security concerns," and projecting a sense of "instability over the electoral environment,” according to Lula's campaign.
Attorney General Jorge Messias also called for a probe ahead of the election into reports that Trump planned to award $1 million to right-wing groups in Brazil, and Brazilian intelligence officials also briefed French and German diplomats on alleged election interference by the US.
Last year, Trump slapped the country with 40% tariffs, accusing Lula's government of "persecuting" Jair Bolsonaro. The former president's son has pledged to give amnesty to his father and the supporters who took part in the 2023 coup, should he win the election—like Trump, who pardoned January 6, 2021 insurrectionists when he returned to power.
The potential victory of Bolsonaro comes amid a wave of right-wing victories across Latin America, where candidates backed by Trump have won recent elections in Colombia, Chile, and Peru, and the Trump administration has partnered with several governments in joint military operations that officials say are aimed at cracking down on drug trafficking.
The march through Rio de Janeiro also coincided with mass student-led protests across France over cuts to education funding; demonstrations in India against the purging of voter rolls; marches by tens of thousands of people in Spain over housing affordability, sparked by public anger over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman; and protests against proposed budget cuts in Chile.
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Brazil on the Brink: Why Lula Is Down Against Bolsonaro Jr.
There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it's gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.
Oct 05, 2026
With the Brazilian presidential election headed to a runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is down 47% to 45% and faces a massive fight ahead. I wanted to give a quick analysis of what happened and where things are going next.
Lula Could Still Win if He Can Consolidate Support from Third Parties
Lula lost by only 2%, and several third-party candidates, who took a combined 8% of the vote, have publicly indicated they would not endorse Flávio Bolsonaro in the second round.
Likewise, 29 million Brazilians did not vote in this round of the runoff and may be persuaded to vote for Lula in the second round if they fear Bolsonaro.
While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate is scheduled to vote on a measure that would shorten the Brazilian workweek from six days to five days. Bolsonaro has opposed this measure, and Lula could use the vote to mobilize workers' support against the Bolsonaro team.
It's a tough road ahead for Lula, but not impossible.
What Hurt Lula in the First Round?
Three primary factors hurt Lula in the first round. First, Lula’s age and the fact that the Workers' Party (PT) has held the presidency in Brazil for 18 of the last 24 years.
The second is that the Brazilian corporate media constantly manufactured scandals against Lula.
Finally, the role that US President Donald Trump played in training and validating the right-wing in Brasil, while not decisive, provided critical support. Here's what went wrong for Lula.
1. Lula is 80 & His Party Ruled Brasil for 18 of the Last 24 Years
Like former US President Joe Biden, one problem Lula faces right now is that he is 80 years old. He doesn’t look as sharp as he used to, while Flávio Bolsonaro is nearly half his age—45 years younger.
Additionally, Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party (PT), has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Lula and Dilma, both members of the Workers' Party (PT), held the presidency from 2002 to 2016. Lula was reelected in 2022 for his record third term. No Brazilian has ever won a third term.
Although the PT has rarely controlled Congress, it is seen as the ruling party because it has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Voters are likely to associate any problems in the country with the PT, which has held the presidency for so long.
While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.
Even worse, Lula failed to recruit young candidates, who may have excited voters to turn out in tight races. In what should have been a competitive Senate election in Rio de Janeiro, the PT recruited 84-year-old Bendedita da Silva, who lost in a landslide to Bolsonaro allies.
Last week, Lula skipped the presidential debate; so did Bolsonaro and its unclear how much this decision might have hurt him.
Lacking excitement, nearly 29 million Brazilians did not vote despite it being obligatory in Brasil.
2. Brazilian Media Manufacturing Scandals Against Lula
The Brazilian media market is extremely consolidated, and the heads of major networks like Globo have been going after Lula hard. They have been accused of manufacturing scandals against Lula.
Last November, the financial institution Banco Master collapsed amid allegations of massive fraud. The bank was being run like a Ponzi scheme, resulting in the largest financial collapse in Brazilian history, with nearly $8 billion in investors’ funds lost.
Despite Banco Master CEO Daniel Vorcaro being a very vocal Bolsonaro supporter, the Brazilian media has repeatedly tried to link the scandal to Lula’s Workers’ Party, as Vorcaro cultivated political ties on both sides of the aisle.
Every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.
Lula’s son, businessman Fábio Luís da Silva, commonly known as “Lulinha,” was scrutinized over large bank accounts worth millions of dollars. For months, Lulinha has offered to open his books and has claimed that he received no special favors from Banco Master. Still, the media repeatedly raised questions about Lulinha’s alleged impropriety.
At one point, media giant TV Globo made a giant infographic web with arrows, showing a complex network linked to Lula. Other reporters widely ridiculed the conspiracy theory map, and TV Globo eventually had to apologize publicly on air.
Then, in May, The Intercept Brasil released a WhatsApp message from Flávio Bolsonaro to Vorcaro, asking him for more than $26 million to fund a strange English-language biopic named Dark Horse, about his father. In the film, Jair Bolsonaro is portrayed by right-wing American actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.
Polling throughout the spring and summer showed Lula leading as the scandal remained fresh in people’s minds. Then, the Brazilian corporate media went into high gear to attack Lula. They went after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the prosecution that jailed Bolsonaro.
Moraes has accused Brazilian Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee, of failing to follow proper procedure in his handling of the Banco Master scandal, leaking information to the press on Lula’s political allies while hiding information on Bolsonaro’s allies.
Moraes asked the Brazilian Federal police to investigate Mendonça's violation of federal investigation procedures and for selectively leaking information to the press that would make Lula allies look bad while suppressing information on Bolsonaro allies.
Moraes accused Mendonça of attempting to “steer the production of evidence toward falsely accusing Supreme Court justices of crimes, expressly naming Justices Gilmar Mendes, Dias Toffoli, Luiz Fux, Alexandre de Moraes, and Nunes Marques, as well as the prosecutor general and the director-general of the Federal Police.”
3. Trump Trained and Emboldened Bolsonaro Allies
While I don’t want to underestimate the strength of fascists within Brasil, it’s important to note that Trump and his operatives did help the Bolsonaro family pull off an impressive comeback.
In March 2025, Eduardo Bolsonaro fled to the United States rather than face prosecution in Brasil for his role in trying to orchestrate a coup, and he was granted permanent residency status in July. While in the United States, Eduardo Bolsonaro has worked closely with Trump officials, including Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell, to oust Lula from power.
“It was a privilege to speak with Ambassador Richard Grenell at President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” Eduardo Bolsonaro wrote on Instagram following a meeting with Grenel in 2025. “The conservative movement is global—and we are just getting started.”
Eduardo Bolsonaro worked closely with top Trump aides like Brad Parscale, Trump’s director of digital strategy, to learn the social media strategy that led Trump to win reelection.
As president, Trump worked hard to attack Lula. He placed punitive tariffs on Brazil for convicting Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo’s father, for attempting to assassinate Lula and overthrow his government in 2022. These tariffs hurt Brasil’s economy.
More importantly, Trump’s constant denunciation of the jailing of Bolsonaro validated conspiracy theories of right-wingers that the justice process was flawed. When Alexandre de Moraes, who led Bolsonaro's conviction, was implicated in the Banco Master scandal, it only reinforced these conspiracy theories.
Ahead of the Brazilian presidential election, the Trump administration has labeled Brasil as a major distributor of cocaine and attempted to paint Lula as weak on taking on drug gangs.
In June, the Trump administration labeled two gangs as “terrorist organizations," something which the Lula administration has repeatedly resisted because of fears of how the Trump administration could intervene in law enforcement and military matters in Brasil.
Still, every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.
On Friday, the Trump administration closed its embassy in Brasil and all of its consulates in a move that many saw as a scare tactic designed to interfere once again in the Brazilian presidential election.
The same day, the Brazilian federal police and intelligence service ABIN were warning of a possible US coup attempt. It was already known that Trump operatives were training operatives in Brasil, and the Brazilian federal police report described in depth how much Trump's intervention had shifted things in Brasil.
International Media Failed to Check Brazilian Media
Finally, the international media completely ignored the Brazilian presidential election, allowing corporate media within Brasil to dominate the conversation without any accountability from the international media.
There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it's gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.
Payday Report can help play a small role in getting the US press more involved. The Washington Post once cited Payday Report in a front-page story for changing the way the pandemic strike wave was discussed, and maybe we can play a small role in getting American reporters to pay attention.
Donate to help Payday Report cover the fight ahead.
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Lula Heads to Presidential Runoff Against Bolsonaro's Son as Trump Accused of Election Meddling
Ahead of Sunday's contest, Brazil's government and Lula's presidential campaign called for investigations into alleged Trump administration efforts to interfere in the Latin American country's politics.
Oct 05, 2026
Brazil's presidential election headed to a runoff on Sunday after neither incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nor challenger Flávio Bolsonaro—the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and ally of US President Donald Trump—received enough votes to win outright.
The younger Bolsonaro, whose father is serving a 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt in 2022, led Lula by two percentage points in the first round, with the final tally standing at 47% to 45%. The runoff will take place on October 25.
Sunday's results—which included major conservative wins in down-ballot contests—heightened fears of another far-right victory in Latin America, where candidates backed by Trump have swept to power in recent elections, including in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. Ahead of Sunday's contest, Lula's campaign, Brazil's intelligence agency, and outside observers accused the Trump administration of meddling in the high-stakes election in an effort to oust Lula and return an ally to the nation's presidency.
Just days before the election, Lula's team called for an investigation after the Trump administration halted US consular services in Brazil, citing "security concerns."
Additionally, Lula's government is calling for a probe of "alleged efforts by the United States to interfere in the country’s domestic politics through the diversion of funds to far-right causes," Al Jazeera reported last week.
"Attorney General Jorge Messias called for the probe on Thursday, one day after the British newspaper The Guardian published a story suggesting that the administration of United States President Donald Trump planned to award $1 million to right-wing civil groups opposing the Brazilian Supreme Court," the outlet noted. "Messias stated in a social media post that foreign meddling 'cannot be tolerated' and that the report represented 'an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty.'"
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, called the Trump administration's interference "another US regime change operation," pointing to the aggressive tariffs Trump imposed on Brazilian goods last year and the US State Department's attempt to send two top officials to "cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system," as The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Trump, who hosted Flávio Bolsonaro at the White House in May, said last week that he was following the Brazilian election "very closely" and described the contest as "very important." A key Trump ally in the region, Argentine President Javier Milei—whose austerity agenda has fueled an increase in poverty in his country—traveled to Brazil in July to support Bolsonaro's campaign against Lula.
Flávio Bolsonaro, a sitting senator, wasn't the only member of the Bolsonaro family seeking greater political power in Sunday's elections. Jair Bolsonaro's wife, Michelle, and his second son, Carlos, both won seats in Brazil's Senate.
The Guardian reported that "of the 54 senators elected, 34 were from the right or far-right."
Following the results, Lula told supporters in Sāo Paulo on Sunday that "we have just had a lesson in Brazilian democracy."
"The result is often unexpected. We can never get everything we wanted. I confess to you that I was convinced I was going to win the election in the first round," said Lula. "But we have a second round."
"From tomorrow we will launch a new campaign," Lula added, "a campaign with only two candidates [where] we will be able to show the difference between our proposals for Brazil."
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Lula Campaign Asks to Probe Sudden US Shutdown of Consular Services as 'Interference in Brazilian Elections'
"Often at the request of the Bolsonaro family, the US has engaged in a pressure campaign to weaken the Lula government," explained one analyst.
Oct 03, 2026
Just two days before Brazil's closely watched presidential election, the campaign of its left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has asked the nation's top election court to examine the sudden shutdown of US consular services as part of a broader investigation into alleged election "interference" by the Trump administration.
The US suspended in-person consular services at its embassy and consulates across Brazil on Friday and advised Americans to avoid US diplomatic facilities, citing unspecified "security concerns."
In a petition filed to Brazil's Superior Electoral Court, Lula's campaign said taking such an action just days before Brazilians vote "projects instability over the electoral environment," something it said was part of a larger "infrastructure of external intervention in the Brazilian electoral process.”
In recent days, Brazil's intelligence agency said it confirmed the existence of interference by the US in Brazil's election to support Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro—who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt in 2022.
"Although Trump has not formally endorsed him, Bolsonaro is undoubtedly Washington’s preferred candidate," explained Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, on Friday. "Often at the request of the Bolsonaro family, the US has engaged in a pressure campaign to weaken the Lula government, sparking fears of further interference."
Trump responded with hostility to the prosecution of the disgraced ex-president—imposing tariffs of up to 50% on Brazilian imports in retaliation, sanctioning the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case, and threatening to use American "military might" against Brazil.
He's also designated two Brazilian crime groups as "narcoterrorist" organizations, invoking a similar pretext Trump used to justify his invasion of Venezuela to kidnap its leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
As the election has approached, Trump has appeared to put his thumb on the scale in an effort to stop Lula from achieving what would be an unprecedented fourth term.
In July, the US consulate in São Paulo invited right-wing pro-Bolsonaro social media influencers to a closed-door roundtable meeting to discuss “freedom of expression and the digital environment.”
The Guardian reported on Thursday that the State Department was also diverting $1 million from its human rights fund to oppose "judicial overreach and censorship" by Brazil’s Supreme Court, an apparent reference to the court's actions against Bolsonaro and his allies.
The Brazilian government has denied visas to two State Department officials whom it said were seeking to discuss "election integrity," which it perceived as an effort to “undermine the electoral system.”
Trump and his allies have previously spread baseless conspiracy theories to cast doubt upon Lula's victory in 2022, which helped to fuel the failed coup. They've done the same with the victories of other left-wing candidates in Latin American elections—including Bolivia's Evo Morales in 2019 and Guatemala's Bernardo Arévalo in 2023.
Lula's campaign said the sudden US suspension of consular services was "yet another extremely serious development in the interference in Brazilian elections by the US government," alleging that it was "coordinated, by all indications, directly by the brothers Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro.”
The filing noted that even “the legislative branch of the foreign state itself… recognizes the pattern of external pressure." It pointed to a letter sent earlier this week by Democratic US Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Tim Kaine (Va.) to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which said that "the administration’s most recent actions point toward an effort to interfere with, and potentially undermine, Brazil’s general election in October."
A man wearing a mask depicting US President Donald Trump attends a rally of Brazilian right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro in Goiania, Brazil, on September 27, 2026. (Photo by Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images)
The first round of Brazil's election will begin on Sunday. Should neither candidate receive 50% of the vote, a runoff between the top two candidates will be held on October 25. Several major polls show Lula with a narrow first-round lead entering Sunday, although others have the race effectively tied or Bolsonaro slightly ahead.
But Lula has also seized upon Trump's meddling to portray Bolsonaro as a tool of foreign powers, drawing on a history of US-backed coups and election interference that have undermined Brazilian democracy.
“Flávio Bolsonaro is Trump’s candidate and what Trump wants is to colonize Brazil, take our riches, steal our future and leave us in the dust," said a campaign ad that began airing last week.
The Trump administration, for its part, has continued to double down on public overtures toward imperialist ambition. On Thursday, an official US State Department social media account reposted a video created in August glorifying the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine and declaring that "American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again."
Dov H. Levin, a political scientist at the University of Hong Kong who recently published research on the effects of foreign election interference, told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that, if too overt, Trump's intervention could backfire.
"There are cases of failure," he said, "and cases where the reaction provoked by the intervention harms precisely the side it intended to help."
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Ahead of High-Stakes Election, Analysis Details Economic Gains of Brazil Under Lula
"The past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
Sep 30, 2026
An analysis released Wednesday documents some of the major economic gains that Brazil has made over the past four years during the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in a close battle for reelection against rival Flávio Bolsonaro.
The analysis, published by the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), finds that, between 2022 and 2025, the Brazilian economy grew by a cumulative 8.9%, easily outpacing the average rate of growth in other South American countries.
This growth has been coupled with a drop in the unemployment rate, which has fallen from more than 9% in the second quarter of 2022 to just 5.4% in the second quarter of 2026.
Both poverty and food insecurity fell dramatically in the first two year's of Lula's term, the analysis finds, and in 2025, "Brazil was removed from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map after chronic undernourishment fell below 2.5%."
CEPR's report also gives credit to Lula's policies for improved economic conditions, including a new minimum wage law, an expanded maternity leave program, and increased average payments to low-income families given through the Bolsa Família program.
The economy during Lula's term is far from perfect, however, and the report flags high interest rates set by Brazil's central bank as a key factor in raising consumers' borrowing costs and increasing the rate of household delinquency.
CEPR also noted the negative impact of online betting apps, which Lula has pledged to ban starting next month, on Brazilian workers.
"Brazilian households lost an estimated R$62.5 billion (US$11.2 billion) to online betting in 2025," the report says, "while some 802,000 Bolsa Família households spent more than 2% of their income on betting in January 2025."
Jake Johnston, CEPR's director of international research, said that "the past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
"This was done," Johnston added, "despite the lingering impact of the Covid pandemic, external economic shocks that affected the global economy, and excessively high interest rates."
The first round of Brazil's presidential election is set to take place on Sunday, and recent polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to instigate a coup after his loss in the 2022 election.
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Alarm Grows Over 'Clearly Illegal' Trump-Rubio Election Meddling in Brazil
"The Trump-Rubio interventions, with the collaboration of the Bolsonaro clan, have made the Flávio campaign into another US regime change operation. This should be defeated."
Sep 30, 2026
Brazilian officials, pro-democracy advocates, and US lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned about apparent efforts by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to interfere in the Latin American country's upcoming election.
Reuters reported Wednesday that Brazil's spy agency "confirmed the existence of interference from the United States as well as Russia" in the presidential election, the first round of which will take place on October 4. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is running for reelection against Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro—who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt in 2022.
Democratic lawmakers in the US have raised alarm about the Trump administration's election meddling in Brazil in recent days as the contest approaches. Earlier this week, Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Tim Kaine (Va.) wrote in a letter to Rubio that "over the course of President Trump’s second term, we have seen US officials engage in a campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil."
"The administration’s most recent actions point toward an effort to interfere with, and potentially undermine, Brazil's general election in October," the lawmakers wrote. "Senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s recent Oval Office meeting with President Trump, undertaken while attempting to mitigate a domestic political scandal, underscores the administration's willingness to insert itself in the election."
The senators' letter followed a separate demand by more than 30 Democrats in the US House that Rubio "confirm whether the administration will commit to respecting Brazil’s electoral process and to recognizing its certified outcome." The House Democrats demanded a response from the Trump administration by October 1.
"Particularly given the tragic history of US involvement in the 1964 military coup against Brazil’s democratically elected government at the time, as well as subsequent US support for the resulting military dictatorship," the lawmakers wrote, "the United States has a responsibility to support the democratic institutions that so many Brazilians, across generations, struggled to build."
Trump has been a vocal defender of Flávio Bolsonaro's father, saying he is "not guilty of anything" and describing his prosecution as a "witch hunt"—echoing Trump's attack on investigations into his own effort to subvert the 2020 election in the US. Last year, Trump hit Brazil with a 40% tariff, accusing the country's leaders of "persecuting former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro."
"It was not just a trade maneuver," political scientist Octavio Amorim Neto said of the tariff in an interview published Thursday, noting that "Bolsonarism explicitly applauded [Trump's economic attack], while Brazil’s traditional right did not vigorously defend national sovereignty, saying that everything was Lula’s fault."
Over the summer, Brazil denied visas to two top US State Department officials "whom the Trump administration planned to dispatch on a mission to cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system," The Washington Post reported in July.
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote in an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times earlier this week that Trump’s intervention in Brazil's electoral process "undermines a basic and generally cherished right to self-determination, as well as the right to democracy itself."
"It is even clearly illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the United States is a signatory," wrote Weisbrot. "The Trump-Rubio interventions, with the collaboration of the Bolsonaro clan, have made the Flávio campaign into another US regime change operation. This should be defeated, for the sake of Brazil and the whole hemisphere."
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This Trump-Rubio Regime Change Operation in Brazil Must Be Thwarted
Trump’s intervention in Brazilian elections undermines a basic and generally cherished right to self-determination, as well as the right to democracy itself. It is even clearly illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the US is a signatory.
Sep 30, 2026
One of the most important elections in recent Latin American history will take place Sunday in Brazil. Incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has recently been emphasizing the issue of national sovereignty. One reason: The challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, has the strong backing of the Trump administration—and the US has been intervening heavily on his behalf.
In the last few months of Brazil’s election campaign, Trump has met with Bolsonaro at the White House, imposed new tariffs on Brazilian goods and tried to send State Department officials to Brazil. (Both Brazilian and American officials said the presence of Trump administration operatives would cast doubt on the integrity of the voting there.)
A letter last week to Secretary of State Marco Rubio from 31 members of Congress documented additional hostile actions and concluded that “the United States is acting as an agent of interference and destabilization.”
The election is forecast to be very close, and the sovereignty issue could be persuasive for swing voters.
Trump’s intervention undermines a basic and generally cherished right to self-determination, as well as the right to democracy itself. It is even clearly illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the United States is a signatory.
But Brazilians currently have reasons to attach even more urgency to preserving their sovereignty and independence. This can be seen in the recent history of Brazil and Latin America and in the economic impact of political independence on living standards.
Starting with Brazil: Lula was a metalworker and union leader who helped found, and then lead, the Workers Party. He served two consecutive terms as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010 and left office with one of the highest approval ratings in the world—83%.
There were compelling reasons for that, which stemmed from the government’s changes in economic and social policy. These changed the lives of tens of millions of people in Brazil. GDP per person, the most basic measure of living standards, grew about four times as fast as it did in the eight years prior to Lula’s presidency. Poverty was reduced by 61% and extreme poverty by 64%. There was also a 57% increase in the real (inflation-adjusted) minimum wage. University enrollment almost doubled.
Lula was able to implement these and other life-changing reforms because he broke with the “Washington consensus” policies that had governed economic decision-making in the region as perhaps never before, from 1980 to 2000. This included economic policies that were often decided at the International Monetary Fund or sometimes other Washington-controlled institutions. The result was a disaster: Those two decades saw the worst long-term economic growth failure in Latin America for more than 100 years.
This historic economic growth collapse helped bring about the election of left-of-center governments in the majority of the region for the first time. As in Brazil, these governments were more independent than the prior regional norm and therefore pursued more progressive and effective economic policies. The turnaround was historic: From 2002 to 2013, the percentage of the population of Latin America living in poverty fell to 28.4 from 45.6 after increasing over the prior two decades.
The independence that these governments were able to establish is what Rubio and Trump appear to most want to abolish. Hence their current efforts at regime change in Brazil. This is the big prize for Rubio. It’s the largest country in Latin America, and a Lula government won’t support the Trump administration in its illegal efforts to control the region. But Lula’s opponent would almost certainly be a solid Trump ally.
That is Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator handpicked by his father Jair Bolsonaro, who was president from 2019 to 2023; he has branded himself “Bolsonaro 2.0.”
Flávio and his team are trying to link Lula to the biggest bank fraud in Brazilian history, which forced a deposit insurance payout of almost $8 billion for about 800,000 victims. But the dirt is actually on Flávio and his allies. He is up to his neck in this scandal. Nothing on Lula.
Bolsonaro 1.0 took a page from the Trump election-denial playbook when he lost the election of 2022 to Lula. He was unable to get enough military commanders to support a decree to prevent Lula from taking office. The nation’s Supreme Court subsequently convicted Bolsonaro of leading an attempted coup. The Brazilian “January 6” was on Jan. 8, 2023, when supporters of the defeated president vandalized Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court and demanded that the military intervene to overturn the election result.
Last year Trump tried to stop the trial of Bolsonaro by slapping Brazil with an additional 40% tariff. Most Brazilians rejected the economic collective punishment as an assault on their national sovereignty, electoral democracy and justice system—which it clearly was. Bolsonaro was convicted and sentenced to prison.
Almost every one of the democratically elected, social democratic governments that came to power in the 21st century faced efforts from Washington to weaken, destabilize or remove it. This reached the level of US-backed coups d’état in Bolivia, Honduras and Haiti. The U.S was also involved in a 2002 coup in Venezuela that was quickly reversed, followed by years of US efforts at regime change there—and later the economic sanctions that killed more than a hundred thousand people, destroying most of the Venezuelan economy in the process. Argentina has also suffered from repeated US interventions that have caused and worsened economic downturns and crises, with serious costs.
Most recently, Trump has increased the economic violence against Cuba, which is Rubio’s foremost target. Cuba’s infant mortality rate has increased 148% since the US began tightening its sanctions, which currently include a devastating cutoff of fossil fuel and electricity.
In the most recent national elections in Colombia (June 21) and Honduras (last Nov. 30), Trump was seen as threatening economic harm (implicitly in Colombia and more explicitly in Honduras), if these citizens did not vote for his chosen candidate.
This is the recent and regional context of the fight for Brazil’s future. The Trump-Rubio interventions, with the collaboration of the Bolsonaro clan, have made the Flávio campaign into another US regime change operation. This should be defeated, for the sake of Brazil and the whole hemisphere.
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Lula Teams With Bad Bunny to Highlight Dangers of Trump’s Colonial Ambitions Across Latin America
"Brazil has only one owner: The Brazilian people," said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Sep 25, 2026
The campaign of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva released new advertisements this week that sounded alarms about the threat posed by US President Donald Trump to the country's sovereignty and resources.
One ad, released on Tuesday, features a Portuguese version of Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny's song "Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii," the lyrics of which decry the damage done by US imperialism throughout the Western Hemisphere.
The ad consists of a video montage highlighting Brazil's rich cultural, ethnic, and ecological diversity, and ends with Lula saying, "Brazil has only one owner: The Brazilian people."
Do Latim, Silva é a própria selva: a raiz que brota do solo, o verde que resiste e a força viva da terra.
Durante séculos quiseram diminuir a nossa gente, mas foi na garra, no suor e na dignidade que cada Silva construiu este país.
A nossa força não se curva, a nossa bandeira… pic.twitter.com/iwujl0ojq0
— Lula (@LulaOficial) September 23, 2026
"Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii" was one of the songs that Bad Bunny performed during his acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show in February, which some critics saw as a joyful rebuke to the colonialist vision for Latin America that Trump has embraced throughout his second term.
According to a report published Thursday in Correio Braziliense, Bad Bunny gave Lula's team permission to use his music in the campaign video.
Another ad, released on Thursday, is more explicit in its warnings about Trump's ambitions for Latin America.
Unlike the video released Tuesday, the later ad directly links the unpopular US president to far-right politician Flávio Bolsonaro, who has emerged as Lula’s top rival for the presidency in upcoming elections and is the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to overthrow Lula's government.
"Flávio Bolsonaro is Trump's candidate," says that ad's narrator. "And what Trump wants is to colonize Brazil, take our wealth, steal our future, and leave us behind."
"Flávio Bolsonaro," the narrator concludes, "is playing against the Brazilian people."
Flávio Bolsonaro é o candidato do Trump.
Quer entregar o nosso país e as nossas riquezas para os Estados Unidos.
Se depender dele, o Brasil vira colônia de novo.
Mas o Brasil só tem um dono: o povo brasileiro. pic.twitter.com/jOSJ83xcKb
— Lula (@LulaOficial) September 25, 2026
In a Thursday social media post, Lula said Bolsonaro “wants to deliver our country and our wealth to the United States,” adding that, if it were up to Bolsonaro, “Brazil will become a colony again.”
During a speech delivered at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Lula called out efforts to treat Brazil as a colony, although he didn’t mention the US directly.
“Brazil is no one’s backyard,” the Brazilian president said at one point.
“We will not allow the enemies of democracy—internal or external—to attack the will of the people," he said. "Brazilian democracy belongs to the Brazilians.”
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