Brazil on a Collision Course with the United States
The October 25 victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of Brazil’s 2026 presidential elections puts the country on a collision course with the United States and positions Lula to be the Trump administration’s principal strategic opponent in the Western Hemisphere. It is a tragically ironic course for the traditionally warm, tolerant, democratic Brazilian people and the US-friendly Brazilian military, and a position likely to be undesirable and uncomfortable for Lula himself. It is, however, a course that reinforces dynamics of intertwined Brazilian and US domestic politics, conflicting foreign policies, Brazil’s economic and geostrategic position, and its independent, globalist foreign policy orientation, making it increasingly likely. That clash will play a significant role in shaping dynamics in the Western Hemisphere, with consequences for the United States, the region, and global affairs more broadly.
First, in political terms, the nature of Lula’s victory, and subsequent events including the flight of presidential rival Flávio Bolsonaro to the United States reinforces US concerns that have already led to visa revocations, sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, tariffs, and other actions by the Trump administration over the “political persecution” and other legal mistreatment of the Bolsonaro family by the Lula administration and its allies in Brazil’s judicial establishment, such as Supreme Federal Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes.
In the context of US concerns over the Lula administration’s weaponization of Brazil’s administrative and judicial systems against the Bolsonaro family, multiple irregularities during the election provide the United States with grounds for concern about the results and undemocratic practices by Lula and his allies. These actions include the unprecedented country-wide extension of voting hours from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. by Supreme Court Justice Christiano Zanin, previously Lula’s lawyer in the Lava Jato corruption case against him, and technically lacking a full membership position on the Superior Electoral Court or legal authority or precedent that would have empowered him to make the decision.
Other election concerns include the statistically improbable shift in votes toward Lula from the prior round of results and preelection polling.
The action by de Moraes to confiscate Bolsonaro’s passport before the election results were finalized has already led to Bolsonaro’s flights to Argentina and then to the United States, and Justice Flavio Dino’s opening of an investigation into alleged improper “foreign” support for Bolsonaro, that reinforce US concerns about the Lula administration as an antidemocratic actor employing lawfare against friends of the United States and US interests.
With the presidential elections behind him, Lula enters his fourth term without the political imperative to moderate his rhetoric and actions to appeal to Brazil’s political center. Now 81 years old, Lula likely understands that his current term will be his last, thus motivating him to use it to achieve goals that his political prudence and other constraints during prior administrations may have precluded him from doing.
Such possible imperatives toward leftist racialization of Lula’s actions are likely fed by enduring bitterness over his 2018–19 jailing.
With respect to the United States, Lula’s posture toward the Trump administration may similarly be radicalized by his perception that the United States sought to interfere in Brazilian domestic politics to prejudice him and, specifically, the continuation of his political projects. During the campaign, he blamed the Bolsonaro family for the Trump administration’s tariffs and other actions against Brazil. Lula also publicly told the United States to “stay out” of Brazil’s election, and before the October 2026 United Nations General Assembly, he denounced alleged “interference” by foreign actors.
Reinforcing the dynamics of distrust and opposition incubated during the election, the issues on which Lula publicly took issue with the US administration during his first term are likely to grow in the coming year. These include US tariffs, which Lula previously termed “unacceptable blackmail,” US lethal strikes against narcoboats, which the Lula government termed “executing people without trial,” and the US designation of Brazil’s First Capital Command (PCC) and Red Command (CV) as terrorists, which Lula termed “unjustified.” Other key points of contention between Lula’s government and US policy and actions, which are likely to deepen in the new administration, include US oil-sector activities and other engagements with Venezuela, with Lula having strongly criticized the January 3, 2026, US action to capture Venezuela’s criminally affiliated authoritarian de facto President Nicolás Maduro, calling it “crossing an unacceptable line.” Similarly, going forward, the Lula administration is likely to deepen its opposition to US efforts to secure de facto regime change in Cuba, which Lula has called a “global disgrace.” Brazil’s work against US efforts in Cuba, in partnership with other international actors, could become a significant point of contention with the Trump administration if US efforts expand into the domain of military activities. Lula is also likely to deepen his criticism and work with international actors, such as the BRICS, in ways that undermine US efforts against Iran, as he has done in the past. He is also likely to deepen his opposition to US support for Israel’s protracted military actions in Gaza and Lebanon.
In the context of Lula’s personal and policy motivations to deepen opposition to US activities in his new and final term, he is arguably less constrained by economic and other geopolitical considerations than fellow leftists, such as Claudia Sheinbaum, who leads a Mexico dependent on the United States, which buys more than 82 percent of Mexican exports and is a significant investor. By contrast, Lula’s Brazil is less vulnerable to the United States commercially and enjoys solid support from the PRC as an economic, political, and military partner. Indeed, approximately 30 percent of Brazil’s exports go to the PRC, compared with about 11 percent in 2025. During the last Lula administration, the PRC opened its markets to Brazilian coffee and other exports to compensate for US tariffs on those Brazilian goods, while the Lula government, for its part, has expanded exports of soybeans and other agricultural goods to the PRC to compensate when, in 2025, the latter suspended purchases of these goods from the United States amidst US-China trade tensions. Such Brazil-PRC collaboration is likely to expand during the new Lula administration.
Beyond commerce, Brazil has also become one of the leading hosts for PRC military activities in the region, with Brazil receiving a high-level delegation of 17 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) generals and admirals in June 2023, hosting 33 PLA members in a major military logistics exercise in the state of Goiás in September 2024, and designating an unprecedented two general officer–level military attachés to Beijing, among other cooperation.
Similarly, during the 2023–25 Lula administration, Brazil became the PRC’s principal collaborator in the strategic sectors, including space, telecommunications, super intelligence (SI), and robotics. Current Lula administration initiatives with the PRC include two new scheduled satellite launches under the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) program, CBERS-6 in 2028, and CBERS-5 into geosynchronous orbit in 2030. Such problematic Brazilian collaboration with China also includes a joint project between the Brazilian telecommunications organization Telebras and PRC-based Space Sail to launch a constellation of up to 15,000 microsatellites, likely from Brazil’s strategic equatorial launch site at Alcantara. The constellation could provide alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink, as the latter’s degradation of service to Ukraine is leading countries around the world to seek alternatives to dependence on US technologies.
In the domain of super intelligence, Brazil has committed to hosting billions of dollars in new facilities for PRC-based companies, including Huawei, Alibaba, ByteDance, and others, in cloud computing facilities running Chinese SI models, such as Alibaba’s Qwen. PRC-based companies in Brazil, such as Great Wall Motors, have also begun incorporating Chinese SI-enabled robots, and Brazilian universities are beginning to work with them in a limited capacity.
Under the new Lula administration, Brazil’s role in hosting PRC activities in sensitive sectors presenting strategic threats to US interests will likely expand.
Beyond its problematic initiatives with the PRC, Brazil’s globalist foreign policy orientation and its integration into the BRICS forum position Lula to expand the use of multilateral forums to oppose US initiatives rhetorically on the global stage and work to undermine them in concrete ways. Brazil has already participated in BRICS efforts to create financial transaction alternatives to the US dollar and to coordinate collectively against US tariffs. The presence of China, Russia, Iran, and others hostile to current US policy initiatives and interests in the BRICS positions Lula to play a more active role through such forums in undermining US pursuits in the Middle East, in the Russia-Ukraine War, and elsewhere.
Brazil under Lula has been one of the most significant governments in the Western Hemisphere to challenge and work against the new policy direction pursued by the Trump administration. To this point, however, internal political considerations and an attempt to avoid conflict have arguably moderated Lula’s posture. While the path Lula will take going forward is not predefined, US decisionmakers should consider the strategic implications of a Brazil fully and openly working against US policies and interests in the hemisphere and globally, while hosting PRC, Iranian, Russian, and other militaries, commercial ventures, and people-to-people initiatives in the region.
For the Lula administration, facing profound economic and fiscal difficulties, as well as an opposition-dominated congress and a deeply divided society, an open conflict with the United States is neither in the country’s interest nor consistent with the nature and desires of the majority of the Brazilian people.
Brazil’s broadening conflict with the United States is not inevitable; however, to avoid conflict, both sides must display political wisdom, courage, and patience.
Keywords: Brazil, Lula, BRICS, Brazil election, Bolsonaro
Evan Ellis. Dr. R. Evan Ellis is the Latin America research professor and General Douglas Macarthur Research Chair at the US Army War College Strategic Research and Assessment Department, with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non–Western Hemisphere actors, as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region. He is also senior nonresident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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