Trump takes blow in Brazil; faces new challenge in Venezuela 

A decisive result in Brazil 

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President Trump‘s South America policy suffered setbacks on Sunday as a key ally took a stunning defeat in Brazil and Venezuela’s top opposition leader returned to her home country to challenge its Trump-backed leader. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pulled off a decisive comeback to win another term as president in its runoff after having trailed in the first round of the election earlier this month. Lula defeated right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a prison sentence for his role in attempting to overturn the last election’s results. 

Trump hadn’t directly weighed in on the race, but the younger Bolsonaro’s election would have elevated another Trump ally in South America, which has seen a rightward shift in its elections in recent years. 

Right-wing leaders have won presidential elections in several neighboring South American countries in just the past year — José Antonio Kast in Chile, Keiko Fujimori in Peru and Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia. All of them have pushed for closer relations with the Trump administration. 

But that trend was bucked in Brazil, where Lula has shown resistance to working with the administration on its priorities. 

One of those key points of tension has been Lula’s refusal to join the U.S. operation to target drug cartels in Central and South America.  

Lula warned in May after the U.S. designated Brazil’s two largest criminal factions as terrorist groups that this could become a pretext for U.S. intervention. 

“We don’t accept being treated like children,” he said, maintaining that Brazilian forces would fight the groups themselves. 

Tensions have also sparked over the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally whom Lula defeated for reelection in 2022. Just as Trump has refused to acknowledge his loss in the 2020 presidential election, the older Bolsonaro refused to accept his defeat. 

Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s government buildings in the capital in an insurrection responding to Lula’s inauguration in January 2023, an incident that drew comparisons to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot in the U.S. Bolsonaro was ultimately prosecuted over the coup plot and handed a 27-year prison sentence. 

Trump has levied significant tariffs on Brazil to get the country to stand down in its prosecution of Bolsonaro, but these attempts have been unsuccessful. 

The younger Bolsonaro is also refusing to concede his loss to Lula, calling for the results to be annulled. He’s pointing to a late court decision that ordered the polling times to be extended by two hours in response to issues with voter transport. 

Trump hasn’t responded yet to the results of the election. At the same time, he’s now facing a more complex situation in Venezuela, where he has been working with a more friendly leader since U.S. forces deposed and captured former leader Nicolás Maduro in January. 

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado returned to her home country Sunday after 10 months in exile.  

This marks Machado’s first appearance in Venezuela since Maduro’s ouster. Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodríguez has served as acting president since then, with America’s backing. 

Rodríguez hasn’t changed many authoritarian policies of the Maduro regime internally, but she has made agreements giving the U.S. greater access to Venezuela’s vast array of oil reserves, a key priority for the Trump administration. 

Trump has a complicated relationship with Machado. He has supported her movement to challenge Maduro in the past but has declined to back her to become Venezuela’s new leader, arguing she........

© The Hill