Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Science and Technology

RIO DE JANEIRO—At right-wing Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s kickoff rally in the city’s Copacabana neighborhood in August, most of his supporters were clad in their usual green and yellow—some wearing soccer jerseys—and waving Brazilian flags.

But a handful of attendees also raised the flags of other countries: the United States and Israel. The banners symbolized the direction that Bolsonaro promises to take Brazil’s foreign policy if he is elected next month: away from the hedging between the United States and its great-power rivals that has defined the current administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running for reelection. Bolsonaro and Lula are neck and neck in the most recent polls.

RIO DE JANEIRO—At right-wing Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s kickoff rally in the city’s Copacabana neighborhood in August, most of his supporters were clad in their usual green and yellow—some wearing soccer jerseys—and waving Brazilian flags.

But a handful of attendees also raised the flags of other countries: the United States and Israel. The banners symbolized the direction that Bolsonaro promises to take Brazil’s foreign policy if he is elected next month: away from the hedging between the United States and its great-power rivals that has defined the current administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running for reelection. Bolsonaro and Lula are neck and neck in the most recent polls.

The Bolsonaro political camp has spent years building close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, emulated Trump’s brash style to win the Brazilian presidency in 2018; his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro has strategized with figures such as former Trump advisor Steve Bannon to boost far-right politics in Latin America. Eduardo has also urged Trump to take actions that could hurt Lula, such as sanctioning the Brazilian judges who convicted his father of plotting to overturn Lula’s 2022 election. Trump called the trial a “witch hunt” and cited it as a justification for hiking U.S. tariffs against many Brazilian goods to a whopping 50 percent last year.

Flávio Bolsonaro has promised to step up the U.S.-Brazil relationship if he wins the presidency. He has said he would join the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s militarized anti-gang initiative; vowed to immediately seek a free trade agreement with Washington; and suggested that U.S.-Brazil partnerships on rare earths could help the United States break free of China’s dominance in the sector. But Bolsonaro also faces constraints to wholly reorienting Brazil’s foreign policy.

While the Trump administration is urging Latin American allies to spurn ties with China, the country remains Brazil’s top trade partner. If elected, it’s likely that Bolsonaro would align with Trump on security matters while preserving major economic links with Beijing, foreign-policy experts said in interviews. Meanwhile, Brazil’s efforts to build financial and technological autonomy to shield itself from pressures from either country would likely shrink, as would its efforts to keep multilateralism and global climate cooperation alive.

The foreign-policy changes that Bolsonaro promises........

© Foreign Policy