Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Donald Trump spoke back to back at the United Nations on September 22, twelve days before Brazil votes. Lula told the General Assembly that “Brazilian democracy belongs to Brazilians” and that Brazil “does not belong in anyone’s backyard.” He never named the United States. He did not have to.
Trump followed him and cited Venezuela as proof that Washington “will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.” He never mentioned Brazil, and neither side requested a bilateral. The same day he gathered the 15 governments of his Shield of the Americas coalition. Brazil is not a member.
Brazil’s first round of elections on October 4, and the likely runoff on October 25, are the largest test yet of Trump’s attempt to restore a U.S. hierarchy in the hemisphere. They are also the hardest, because the methods Washington has used on smaller countries cannot be used openly here.
The doctrine has a name. Last December’s National Security Strategy proclaimed a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. In Venezuela, it meant force. In Argentina, it meant conditions stated out loud: “If he loses, we are not going to be generous,” Trump said of presidential candidate Javier Milei, with $20 billion on the table. He made the same threat in Honduras . Both his candidates won.
Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy, a founding member of BRICS, and China’s customer before America’s. Washington has been here before. On March 31, 1964, the State Department cabled its embassy that tankers, a carrier task force, and 110 tons of ammunition were being readied to assist anti-democratic forces. The generals held power for 21 years.
The blunt approach failed again in 2025. Fifty percent tariffs and sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes did not keep Jair Bolsonaro from receiving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup, and these U.S. actions lifted Lula’s approval .
A thaw followed. Washington dropped the tariff on beef and coffee in November and took Moraes off its sanctions list in December. A senior administration official told CBS News that the lower house’s passage of an amnesty bill, legislation bearing directly on Bolsonaro and his supporters, signaled improving conditions in Brazil. Sanctions relief for a judge was justified by a change in Brazilian criminal law.
The trade talks ran on the same logic. Washington’s 21 demands in October 2025 included one that Brazil “must not detain, imprison, or arbitrarily limit participation of political dissidents” in the 2026 election. According to foreign ministry sources, that meant Bolsonaro and the January 8 rioters.
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs in February, the pressure found other channels. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the imprisoned former leader and now Lula’s challenger, met Trump in the Oval Office in May. Two days later Brazil’s two largest gangs were designated terrorist organizations, and Flávio said he had “worked to have them treated as terrorists.” In July, a 25 percent tariff took effect, followed by a 12.5 percent duty over forced labor. In August, Brazil’s intelligence agency, Abin , rated the risk of U.S. interference “critical,” though its assessment does not appear to suggest an electoral operation.
Some of Washington’s grievances hold. The Section 301 case covers Brazil’s Pix payment system, court orders against U.S. platforms, and both ethanol and deforestation. It also exempts more than 2,100 product lines. The gangs designated as “terrorist” are real. Brazil’s Supreme Court took X offline for more than five weeks in 2024. None of that explains a trade clause about “political dissidents.” What Washington will trade its grievances for says more than the grievances do.
The voting machines are where these threads meet. In July, Brazil denied visas to two senior State Department officials planning to discuss “election integrity.” The State Department called Brazil’s interference concerns a “baseless lie.” Days earlier, Flávio had linked Brazil’s machines to Smartmatic, citing a CIA document about Venezuela. His father spent years attacking the same machines before losing in 2022.
Last week the fight reached Brazil’s courts. Lula’s allies asked the Supreme Court and the electoral court to examine paid posts on X from foreign accounts and whether the Rockbridge Network , a donor group co-founded by Vice President JD Vance, aided Flávio’s campaign. The petition admits it could not identify who paid for the posts.
None of this proves a Washington plot to pick Brazil’s president. But the Trump administration is certainly trying to shape the conditions under which Brazilians pick one. Brazil’s trade ministry calculates that 23.1 percent of its U.S.-bound exports face the new duties, and 16.5 percent pay both. The terror designations raise compliance risk for any Brazilian bank suspected of indirect gang links. Each lever reminds Brasília what staying outside Trump’s coalition costs. Lula has said he will not choose between Washington and Beijing, which is a hedge, not hostility.
The polls settle nothing. Datafolha has Lula ahead 47 to 45 percent in a runoff, inside the margin of error, while another firm, Quaest, has Flávio up by one. Voters are weighing crime, prices, and a Supreme Court investigation into the millions Flávio took from Banco Master’s Daniel Vorcaro to fund a film about his father. Ironically, Alexandre de Moraes is also caught up in a scandal involving Vorcaro.
The danger lies after election night. On September 24, Bernie Sanders and 30 House Democrats told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the United States “is acting as an agent of interference and destabilization” in Brazil. They asked for one commitment: that Washington will recognize the certified result.
Now, imagine Flávio Bolsonaro losing by a point after a summer spent tying the machines to Venezuela. His first appeal would go to a State Department that wanted to fly to Brasília to discuss “election integrity.” One sentence from Rubio now would close that door.
If Washington wants to defend Bolsonaro’s supporters, it can argue that in public. If it wants Brazil in its orbit, that is ordinary foreign policy. Neither gives it the right to set the boundaries of Brazil’s democracy.
Whoever wins on October 25, the result that matters more comes afterward: whether Brazil’s courts and its next president treat American pressure as something to manage or a line to accept. Venezuela showed what the Trump Corollary means when Washington uses force. Brazil will show what it means when Washington can’t.
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Lula, Trump and The Limits of a New Monroe Doctrine
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