Mother Jones illustration; Eduardo Carmim/Sport Press Photo/Zuma
This article was published in partnership with Agência Pública, Brazil’s largest nonprofit newsroom.
Two weeks before the second and decisive round of the Brazilian presidential elections in October, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Rio de Janeiro for the multi-day celebration of his son Conor’s wedding. The Kennedy scion married singer Giulia Be, a pop star born into a Brazilian right-wing clan, the Marinho family, who are close allies of the disgraced former President Jair Bolsonaro. The nuptials took place at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in historic downtown Rio, which once served the Portuguese royalty that colonized Brazil for more than 300 years.
A week later, supporters of then-presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro carried an inflatable missile with the words “Trump nuke Brazil” in English at a rally in the city of São Paulo. The symbolic image—apparently welcoming a US intervention in the country—may have shocked supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Brazilians who value the country’s sovereignty. But family ties between right-wing clans, inflatable missiles, and requests for American military action against a perceived communist threat only begin to scratch the surface of the far-right’s increasing strength in Brazilian politics and its yearning for a closer connection with the Trump administration.
After Sunday’s election results in a neck-and-neck race, their wishes will have to be deferred. In a historic comeback, incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly fended off his opponent’s bid to restore a far-right government to Latin America’s largest economy that would have further painted the map of Trump’s geopolitical aspirations for “American preeminence” in the region orange. With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, Lula received 64 million votes, winning 51,77 percent of votes to Bolsonaro’s 48.23 percent. This is the first time a candidate has won the presidential election after coming behind in the first round. Flávio Bolsonaro has yet to concede.
Brazil has long been a model of efficient vote tallying, but this year, the announcement of the results came only after a two-hour extension of the voting deadline. Brazil Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting hours at the last minute in response to electoral court complaints from both campaigns. Incumbent president Lula pointed to reports of hampered public transportation services preventing people from getting to the polling stations in several states, while Flávio claimed inclement weather had impacted voters in places where he performed well in the first round. The order was issued after some stations had already closed, causing confusion.
Lula’s reelection for a fourth term in a consequential dispute where the future of the Amazon was at stake throws cold water on the MAGA world’s hopes of a win for the oldest son of Jair Bolsonaro—convicted of attempting a coup d’état following his failed re-election bid in 2022 and serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest. “A turn to the right for Brazil,” said Jana Nelson, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for western affairs “would fulfill this publicly-stated goal of the Trump administration to have more right-wing leaders” in the hemisphere.
“Brazil will be the battleground where the future of the hemisphere will be fought. Because Brazil is America’s solution to break [its] independence from China for critical minerals.”
Under Lula, the relationship between Brazil and the United States has, at times, been marked by tension. The Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods and sanctions on judicial authorities as retribution for the alleged political “persecution” of Jair Bolsonaro. It also revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to the United States, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, in retaliation for an alleged delay on the Brazilian government’s side to formally approve the administration’s new pick for the role. Amidst warnings of undue US interference in the Brazilian elections and a worsening strain on the nations’ diplomatic ties, Lula raised the banner of protecting the country’s national interests, declaring that Brazil doesn’t “fit into anyone’s backyard” and that its destiny was for the Brazilian people to decide.
As a candidate, Flávio hinted at a rapprochement with Washington. “Brazil will be the battleground where the future of the hemisphere will be fought,” he announced at CPAC in late March 2026. “Because Brazil is America’s solution to break [its] independence from China for critical minerals.” Brazil has the world’s second-largest rare earth reserves of minerals—essential for everything from electronics to defense technology to clean energy transition—second only to China, which happens to be Brazil’s main trading partner. Flávio’s gesture to America prompted President Lula to suggest his opponent would hand over Brazil’s natural resources to the United States, accusing the Bolsonaro family of being “subordinate to American interests.”
Not long after Flávio’s CPAC appearance, André Marinho, the brother of Conor Kennedy’s bride, traveled to the United States. A businessman and one-time candidate for governor of Rio de Janeiro, he was invited by Rockbridge—a far-right network of donors created by Vice President JD Vance that at one point had plans to set up operations in Brazil—and had a meeting with Vance, reportedly arranged by RFK Jr. At the time, Marinho told Brazilian media that he and the vice president had discussed the expansion of organized crime in Rio de Janeiro and the connections of criminal groups with international networks.
Reporting by Brazilian journalist Guilherme Amado revealed an English-language memo Marinho had authored outlining the potential advantages of a Flávio Bolsonaro administration for Trump’s government and family businesses. The 22-page strategic proposal titled “Prosperity Partnership” provided a roadmap for the US exploration of rare earths under Brazil’s new far-right government. The plan, drafted about two weeks before Marinho traveled to meet with Vance, described Brazil as the “solution” for the issue of critical minerals, the same language Flávio then used in the message he delivered at CPAC.
According to the “Prosperity Partnership,” a Bolsonaro government would “position Brazil as the main supplier and processing hub for critical minerals aligned with the West in the Western Hemisphere.” It also argued that this plan would free the country from being “dependent” on Chinese processing chains and “align with the United States in building a parallel supply system.” The document further mentioned “accelerating the regulatory process.” Flávio’s government platform adopts a similar tone, promising “agile and technical licensing” for mineral exploration. (Marinho denied that the document, bearing the cover “Flávio Bolsonaro | 2026 Campaign,” had any connection to the Bolsonarista campaign.)
Reached by Agência Pública, Marinho said that the “matter is rehashed, harmless, and outdated, precisely because there are no practical consequences in reality.” He subsequently sent a statement asserting: “The study was prepared exclusively on personal initiative, as a hypothetical scenario analysis exercise. It was not an official proposal nor was it produced at the request of any campaign, authority, or organization.” Marinho further stated that he didn’t send the material to “Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign, to US authorities, or organizations, nor was it the subject of any meeting or negotiation.” He added that his meeting with Vance in April 2026 “had no connection whatsoever to this study.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that the ideas of this Bolsonaro supporter, who also happens to be RFK Jr.’s newest relative, align with the economic pillars of the “Donroe Doctrine,” rooted in facilitating US access to the natural resources of Latin American countries. In the opinion of political scientist Guilherme Casarões, an associate professor at Florida International University, a Flávio win would represent the consolidation of the project behind the revival of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine to reassert US dominance over the hemisphere.
“The original Monroe Doctrine had as its basic idea protecting the American hemisphere from European interests and, subsequently, consolidating US hegemony,” says Casarões. “What Trump is trying to do now is precisely to revitalize it with a few new features, which are based not only on imposing a degree of military power and economic relations, but also involve building an ideological alliance in the Americas.”
The Trump administration is already seeing the results of its ambitions. In Venezuela, US multinational corporations and business owners aligned with Trump have secured contracts for oil exploration, and in August, the US government announced an agreement granting a partnering private company 100-year concessions to extract oil from 17 fields. In Argentina, a decree by President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, repealed a law imposing restrictions on land ownership by foreigners. (Despite public pushback and legal challenges, the country’s Supreme Court first upheld Milei’s decision, but has since reversed course.) 1789 Capital fund, which has Donald Trump Jr. as a partner, has already invested in Vulcan Elements, a startup that secured a loan from the Pentagon and is part of a corporate chain involved in a rare-earth mining initiative in Brazil.
The power asymmetry between the United States and Latin American countries raises questions about the future of land and natural resource exploitation in the region. Casarões notes that, in a scenario of “subservience to the US government” following Flávio’s victory, “it’s possible that South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, but also Colombia and Chile, enter a sort of race to the bottom. A reverse auction, with a dynamic of who yields more [to the US].”
“It’s possible that South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, but also Colombia and Chile, enter a sort of race to the bottom. A reverse auction, with a dynamic of who yields more [to the US].”
Last year, the Trump administration presented a list of demands to Lula’s government in order to reduce the tariffs on Brazilian goods. Among other things, the demands asked Brazil to inform the United States in advance of any potential critical minerals sales and to take measures to “limit investments by foreign entities considered worrisome”—in other words, China—in the mining and other industrial sectors. The Brazilian government didn’t engage with the demands.
In September, President Lula signed into law a national policy on critical and strategic minerals to “guarantee sovereignty over the use of these natural resources for the economic, technological, and social development of the country.” Brazil’s sovereignty, he said in a speech, “is not for sale.”
No less important to the Trump administration is their affinity with the Bolsonarista approach to fighting drug trafficking. In May 2026, days after an unusual meeting between would-be presidential contender Flávio Bolsonaro and Trump at the White House, the US government designated Brazil’s two main criminal groups as terrorist organizations. This is considered one of Flávio’s major victories, as he took credit for the United States accepting the request over the Brazilian government’s opposition. (Last year, Flávio shared a post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about a boat strike, writing, “Wouldn’t you like to spend a few months here helping us fight these terrorist organizations?”)
Flávio’s alleged connections to organized crime, on the other hand, were one of the lines of attack most deployed by Lula’s Workers’ Party leading up to the second round of voting. In addition to his long-standing, well-documented ties to militias in Rio de Janeiro, the case of Ana Clara—a young girl shot and killed by a police officer’s rifle in 2021—also resurfaced. A lawyer by trade, Flávio was part of the officer’s defense team and helped prevent the case from going to a jury trial. The police officer remains free.
This was not Flavio’s first time defending rogue actions by law enforcement. In 2007, during a speech in the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly while serving as a state lawmaker, Flávio justified another child’s death in the hands of a police officer, this time in the United States. “The police arrived to approach this 12-year-old minor who had the gun at his waist, and told him: ‘Hands up!’” he said, referring to Tamir Rice, who was playing with a toy gun in a park in Cleveland in November 2014. “The boy reached for the gun and pulled it out, pointing it at the officers. He was shot on the spot, as it should be.”
“The Brazilian press, or a large part of it, treats this as a serious mistake because a child died,” Flávio said at the time. “The fact is indeed regrettable. Who wouldn’t be bothered by it? But what if it were a real gun?”
If Flávio had won, Brazil would likely have joined the Shield of the Americas, an initiative that brings together at least 13 countries in the region under US leadership. Created in March 2026, the group unites Trump-aligned governments to serve as a sort of NATO to fight organized crime. In October, the New York Times revealed that the United States is already sending hundreds of soldiers to train and conduct exercises with local forces in Latin America to combat regional drug trafficking.
“Given the 200-year history of interventions, involvement in political processes, and the open or covert funding or orchestration of coups, there is strong resistance to any US military presence in our countries,” says Casarões. “We are currently living through a new era marked by the outsourcing of sovereignty and the resignification of the fight against organized crime,” he adds. “The sole goal is to set a precedent so that the United States can intervene in countries without any legal justification, as is already happening in Ecuador and El Salvador.”
Nelson, the former US government official, acknowledged concerns that the terrorism designation could represent a threat to Brazil’s territorial sovereignty, but described it as a “very remote possibility.” A victory for the right, she said, would likely usher a “better bilateral [Brazil-US] relationship simply because they will be ideological partners, for no other reason.”
As president, Lula will be constrained by the legislature, says Andre Pagliarini of Louisiana State University. About one-third of the Brazilian Congress elected in the first round is aligned with the far right in what one expert called a “conservative revolution.” Some of the top-voted lawmakers echo Trumpist agendas and topics discussed by candidates running in the US midterms that will take place less than ten days after the Brazilian runoff. Eduarda Campopiano, 23, the most-voted state deputy in Brazil’s wealthiest and most populous state, São Paulo, doesn’t believe in femicide exists and says she wants to become a tradwife after leaving politics. Lucas Pavanato, 28, broke the voting record for federal deputy in the same state, drawing over 3 million votes. During the campaign, he leaned heavily on the moral panic over trans bathrooms.
Pagliarini described a Lula win as a historical feat. “What worries me, then, is that even if Lula mounts an uprecedented comeback and wins in the second round, the outcome won’t be recognized by Flávio or his allies in Washington. That to me is the great unknown of this second round.”