How Will Trump Victory Change US-Brazil Relations?

As Bolsonaro supporters commemorate Trump's victory, this article looks at the possible ramifications

By Brian Mier

Throughout Brazilian history, the U.S. government and expanded state actors have frequently interfered to control, destabilize and overthrow Brazil’s leadership. Today, actors like Elon Musk, The New York Times, and Tucker Carlson are spreading false narratives designed to destabilize President Lula's administration. Under Trump, these narratives could be inserted into official policy, aiming either to oust Lula or ensure a 2026 win for far right São Paulo governor Tarcisio de Freitas.

The Democratic Party’s relationship with Brazil has been tumultuous for nearly a century. Although Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy helped Brazil create Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN), Brazil’s national steel company, the establishment of Petrobras in 1953 angered U.S. oil interests, leading to CIA-backed protests and covert support for Brazil's 1964 military coup, during which the Johnson administration stationed a carrier strike group off the coast of Rio de Janeiro to support Brazil’s military. Afterward, the U.S. funded military and police training in torture and propaganda and expanded state actor Time Life supported Globo Group to create a national TV network to help the dictatorship maintain social control, which is now a key conservative voice. U.S. influence also extended to Operation Condor, which linked South America’s dictatorships for coordinated repression.

In 2014, anti-Workers' Party (PT) sentiment surged as the PSDB party and U.S. media backed candidate Aécio Neves, invited former Obama advisor David Axelrod for social media strategy support. After Neves’s defeat, the PSDB pushed a “stop the steal” narrative and paralyzed Congress. Meanwhile, Operation Car Wash—a weaponized anti-corruption probe guided by the U.S. Department of Justice—crippled Brazil’s economy and brought down Rousseff’s popularity. Judge Sergio Moro, heavily promoted in U.S. media, used corruption allegations against a handful of executives as an excuse to paralyze thousands of large-scale construction projects, which bankrupted Brazil's 5 largest engineering companies, caused millions of direct and indirect layoffs and cut GDP growth by 2.5% in 2015, paving the way for Rousseff’s removal.

Under Bolsonaro, U.S.-Brazil relations improved, with Brazil severing ties with Venezuela and joining the U.S. in anti-China rhetoric. Bolsonaro aligned with Trump's “stop the steal” narrative, refusing to recognize Biden's win for months. After initially supporting Bolsonaro through multiple visits to Brazil by top state department and CIA officials, in 2023, due in part to pressure from a small group of Democratic lawmakers led by Hank Johnson, the Biden administration changed its tune. On January 8, 2023, amid a failed military coup attempt in Brasília, the U.S. affirmed support for Lula’s presidency.

Two years into the Lula government, after reestablishing diplomatic ties with Venezuela that had been severed by Bolsonaro, Brazil’s growing hostility toward both Venezuela and Nicaragua has fueled critiques labeling Lula as a “U.S. puppet.” However, based on the PT’s history, it’s unlikely the U.S. will support Lula’s 2026 reelection. U.S. state and aligned non-state actors, regardless of party, historically undermine Latin American leaders pursuing sovereignty or social democracy. This can be seen over the last 20 years by bipartisan interference in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Mexico and El Salvador, and with DOJ-supported lawfare attacks during both the Obama and Trump administrations against leaders like Cristina Kirchner, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Lula and Jorge Glas.

Before the U.S. election, Lula’s support for Kamala Harris drew criticism from leftist journalists like Breno Altman, who argued that there’s no real difference in U.S.-Brazil relations by party. Unlike Bolsonaro, who delayed Biden’s recognition, however, Lula publicly congratulated Trump on November 6, expressing a desire for normal relations between the two nations.

As Workers' Party supporters, both in and out of government, worry that Trump and his billionaire, media, and Republican backers' ties with the Bolsonaro family could bolster the far right for a 2026 comeback, experienced voices in party leadership are calling for calm.

"Lula is not Kamala Harris, and Trump is not Bolsonaro," former party president José Dirceu said on November 6. He noted that although Trump has transformed his party into "Trumpism," Brazil’s far right is more fragmented, providing opportunities for the left over the next two years if it can “retake territory, reconnect with the youth, work through networks, and update its messaging.”

The Bolsonaros’ ties to the Republican Party are widely known. Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro was at the January 5, 2021, “war council” meeting in Washington, D.C., and is CPAC's representative for South America. Nonetheless, some in Brazil’s left argue a Harris victory could have posed an even greater threat.

Earlier this week, an MST national director asked for my opinion on the following text message she had received from an ally within the movement:

“A toxic relationship with the White House is more typical of Democrats, who connect with the PT and a liberal, identity-based left in Brazil. With Trump, things are more blatant. Some fear he could strengthen Bolsonaro, but for PT-aligned Brazil, Democrats in the White House are the worst. The coups in 1964 and 2016 were orchestrated by Democrats, not Republicans. If Trump confronts the Brazilian government to strengthen the far right, at least the class struggle is exposed.”

September, 2016, as countries across South America refused to recognize illegitimate coup President Michel Temer, US Vice President Joe Biden met with him to assure him that he had the full support of the Obama administration.

I answered her saying that although I believe the analysis on the Democratic Party is spot on, its conclusions reflect errors in objective and subjective conjectural analysis. It is clear that the Democrats have been working to usurp the Workers' Party from within, as Tony Blair did to Labor, by transforming it into a tool of international financial capital that reduces or eliminates any commitment to class struggle beyond empty symbolism. However, this is primarily done through Democrat-aligned soft power NGOs like the Ford Foundation, which constantly tries to steer working class Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous, and women’s rights movements away from class struggle and has strong ties with some Lula administration officials. As this activity will continue unabated, with Trump in office, the Workers Party is now facing a double threat.

While Democrats may have eventually decided to support probable far right candidate Tarcisio Freitas in 2026, this is a given with Trump. Furthermore, there’s a higher risk of immediate destabilization, possibly through a narrative equating Brazil with “authoritarian” regimes, which is already being promoted by Republican lawmakers, and supported by the New York Times.

In Inside the Company: The CIA Diary, former agent Phillip Agee described intelligence strategies to remove Latin American leaders resisting predatory U.S. interests. If the U.S.-favored candidate fails to win in a free election, next steps, in declining order of desirability, include covert opposition support, coups, proxy wars, or, as with Manuel Noriega in Panama, military invasion.

Given this framework, Trump’s administration may forgo waiting until 2026 and instead work to increase destabilization efforts against Lula’s government immediately, potentially triggering a coup.

Although Brazil has refrained from recognizing opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, it also hasn’t recognized the Supreme Court ruling confirming Maduro’s victory. As flawed as this hypocritically interventionist position is, it won't be good enough for Trump, whose sanctions on vital medicines like insulin contributed to an estimated 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in 2018. Once in office, Trump will pressure Brazil for total alignment on Venezuela (and other nations on his enemy list like Cuba and Iran). Refusal to toe the line could trigger further destabilization, paving the way for an arbitrary impeachment of Lula.

This is plausible. For as long as Brazil’s democracy has existed, the executive has been held hostage by the powerful and multi-party ruralista lobby, financed by Big Agro, which commands an absolute congressional majority. After backing Bolsonaro, the ruralistas switched support to Lula after he won the election, gaining key cabinet posts during negotiations that took place in the final weeks of 2022. To maintain their support, Lula has upheld policies favorable to them, such as maintaining a weak currency to favor commodity exports. Another ruralista concession is a fiscal framework that overrode Michel Temer's constitutional amendment mandating a 20-year freeze on health and education spending but limits annual increases to 2.5%. With only 80 seats in Brazil’s 513-member lower house, Lula’s inner-circle coalition (PT, PCdoB, PSB, and PV) cannot effectively oppose the ruralista’s power to override vetoes. This reality exposes the “Supreme Court dictatorship” narrative promoted by figures like the Bolsonaro family and Glenn Greenwald as a smokescreen.

If the Trump administration seeks to destabilize Lula’s government, it will likely work covertly to build a new alliance between the far right and the ruralistas, setting the stage for a parliamentary coup via an arbitrary impeachment process, like the one suffered by Dilma Rousseff in 2016. International far-right allies will use big data to finance micro-targeted social media campaigns to build public support, while Brazil’s mainstream media, historically hostile to Lula, will fall in line. This could spur the rise of a new, neofascist tide across Latin America, extending through Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, and Ecuador if Trump’s regime-change ambitions succeed.

The positive news is that the Workers' Party is aware of all of this and has its own tactics to protect Brazilian democracy. As the analysis forwarded to me by the MST highlights, at least this threat is now out in the open. It’s unlikely Trump will publicly praise Lula as "the man" only to stab him in the back through NSA surveillance and support for a coup, as Obama did with the Workers' Party. Instead, as during the Bush administration, at least the PT knows where it stands. Finally, there is a reasonable chance that, like the first time around, a new Trump administration will fail at meeting most of its objectives.