Brazilian voters have denied Latin America’s resurgent right its ultimate prize, snapping a streak of seven straight conservative presidential victories in 18 months.
The stunning triumph of leftist incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over Flavio Bolsonaro on Sunday, with 51.8 per cent of the vote to 48.2 per cent, limits U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to tighten his grip on the Western Hemisphere and cements Latin America’s most populous country and largest economy as a counterweight to Washington. A Bolsonaro victory would have left Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum as the only progressive president among the region’s powerhouses.
For the Trump administration, which has wielded punishing tariffs, severe sanctions and military force to reassert its dominance in the region, Lula’s victory complicates its campaign to enlist Brazil in its military coalition against cartels and to gain preferential access to the country’s critical minerals, analysts say.
Yet both sides see reasons to cooperate. Washington wants access to Brazil’s vast trove of rare earths to reduce its defense industry’s reliance on China. Lula wants foreign investment and tariff relief for Brazilian exporters.
“Lula is pragmatic enough to work out some kind of modus operandi with the Trump administration,” said Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that the Bolsonaros’ allies in Washington would likely lose sway after the family’s second electoral defeat. Flávio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, lost to Lula in 2022.
“I’m not sure anyone in the Trump administration, beyond a few individuals, will want to keep making the Bolsonaros the central issue in the U.S.-Brazil relationship,” he said.
Across much of Latin America, voters fed up with organized crime and economic insecurity have rewarded presidential candidates promising to restore order. From Peru’s Keiko Fujimori to Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella and Chile’s José Antonio Kast, newly elected conservatives have courted Trump while taking their cues from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, whose sweeping gang crackdown has sharply reduced homicides at the cost of mass arrests and suspended civil liberties.
Trump has reinforced that shift with electoral endorsements, financial bailouts and millions of dollars in military aid.
“The U.S. is certainly putting its finger on the scale to try to help the more hard-line right-wing elements in the region,” said Kenneth Roberts, a professor of government at Cornell University.
Get daily National news
Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.
Brazil would have been Washington’s most consequential addition. Bolsonaro had promised to join the U.S.-led security coalition “with great enthusiasm and great honor,” making his alliance with Trump part of his pitch to voters.
Lula, by contrast, has championed Brazil’s long tradition of nonalignment, cultivating ties with competing powers. His government deepened trade ties with China and sought greater global influence through BRICS, a group of emerging economies.
Trump’s heavy-handed support for the Bolsonaros played into that message. The double-digit tariffs he imposed on a range of Brazilian goods to punish Brazil for prosecuting former President Jair Bolsonaro over a coup plot to oust Lula stirred a nationalist backlash that the leftist leader channeled into the rallying cry “Brazil belongs to Brazilians.”
“To the extent that the regional superpower becomes a threat to Brazil’s democratic institutions, defending Brazilian national sovereignty also becomes a form of defending Brazilian democracy,” Roberts said.
Brazil resisted joining the Shield of the Americas, a U.S.-led military coalition targeting cartels.
When Washington in May designated Brazil’s two largest criminal factions, the First Capital Command and the Red Command, as terrorist organizations, Lula warned the labels could become a pretext for American intervention.
“We don’t accept being treated like children,” he said after the announcement. Of the gangs, he added: “We will fight them here at home.”
Countries along the main northbound cocaine and migrant routes, many of them heavily dependent on the U.S. market, have been more accommodating. In Ecuador, U.S. troops have joined local police in raids targeting suspected drug networks across the coastal lowlands. Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia have also agreed to joint military operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said, though Guatemala’s government has denied it.
“Brazil is not Honduras. It’s a large country with a very independent history and a military that would not look kindly upon foreign troops in its own territory,” said Brian Winter, a veteran Latin America analyst and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, a policy journal. “The Trump administration will have to walk a certain line here.”
Washington may also have less reason to press Lula on military cooperation. Most of the cocaine moving through Brazil is consumed in the country or shipped to Europe and Africa, rather than the U.S.
On critical minerals, Lula wants Brazil to control its resources and preserve its freedom to sell beyond the U.S.
Brazil holds the world’s second-largest known reserves of rare earths, used in powerful magnets for guided missiles, smartphones, wind turbines and electric vehicles.
Last month, USA Rare Earth, in which the U.S. government holds a stake, completed its $2.8 billion takeover of Serra Verde, the Brazilian firm that owns one of the few mines outside of Asia producing all four rare earths needed for those magnets. Alarmed by the expanding U.S. role, Lula’s administration fast-tracked legislation tightening oversight of critical minerals.
“Revisiting the Serra Verde–USA Rare Earth deal may not be the first thing that Lula does when he’s reelected, but it’s on his radar,” said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Brazil also produces about 90 per cent of the world’s niobium, a critical element for jet, rocket engines and other military hardware, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Any Brazilian export restrictions could disrupt supply chains for U.S. defense manufacturers.
“Brazil has leverage,” de Bolle said. “With Lula, the U.S. is on shakier ground.”
Compromise at home and abroad
For all his defiant public statements, Lula has sought peace with Trump. His White House visit in May to discuss trade, organized crime and critical minerals undercut the Bolsonaros’ claim that only they could deal with Washington.
More bargaining with Trump surely lies ahead over tariffs and with Brazil’s Congress, where conservatives expanded their ranks in the Oct. 4 elections, depriving Lula of the backing he needs to institute meaningful reforms. After three previous terms, Lula confronts voters impatient for safer streets and relief from the high cost of living.
“Lula has his hands tied,” said Guilherme Casarões, an associate professor of Brazilian studies at Florida International University. “Pretty much everything he has tried to do has been blocked in Congress.”
Across Latin America, coalitions that united against a common opponent have often splintered as the realities of governing set in. Trump’s new allies are already losing support in Chile, Bolivia and Peru, suggesting the region’s rightward turn may be less durable than it appears. Lula bucked the anti-incumbent trend, but his support could evaporate quickly as he bargains with opponents — in Congress and beyond Brazil’s borders — to deliver the results voters expect.
About the Author
