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Lula's Win in Brazil Ends Shift Right 10/26 06:32
Brazilian voters have denied Latin America's resurgent right its ultimate
prize, snapping a streak of seven straight conservative presidential victories
in 18 months.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Brazilian voters have denied Latin America's
resurgent right its ultimate prize, snapping a streak of seven straight
conservative presidential victories in 18 months.
The stunning triumph of leftist incumbent President Luiz Incio Lula da
Silva over Flvio Bolsonaro on Sunday, with 51.8% of the vote to 48.2%, limits
U.S. President Donald Trump's drive to tighten his grip on the Western
Hemisphere and cements Latin America's most populous country and largest
economy as a counterweight to Washington. A Bolsonaro victory would have left
Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum as the only progressive president among the region's
powerhouses.
For the Trump administration, which has wielded punishing tariffs, severe
sanctions and military force to reassert its dominance in the region, Lula's
victory complicates its campaign to enlist Brazil in its military coalition
against cartels and to gain preferential access to the country's critical
minerals, analysts say.
Yet both sides see reasons to cooperate. Washington wants access to Brazil's
vast trove of rare earths to reduce its defense industry's reliance on China.
Lula wants foreign investment and tariff relief for Brazilian exporters.
"Lula is pragmatic enough to work out some kind of modus operandi with the
Trump administration," said Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at
the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that the Bolsonaros' allies in
Washington would likely lose sway after the family's second electoral defeat.
Flvio's father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, lost to Lula in 2022.
"I'm not sure anyone in the Trump administration, beyond a few individuals,
will want to keep making the Bolsonaros the central issue in the U.S.-Brazil
relationship," he said.
Trump's missing piece
Across much of Latin America, voters fed up with organized crime and
economic insecurity have rewarded presidential candidates promising to restore
order. From Peru's Keiko Fujimori to Colombia's Abelardo de la Espriella and
Chile's Jose Antonio Kast, newly elected conservatives have courted Trump while
taking their cues from El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, whose sweeping
gang crackdown has sharply reduced homicides at the cost of mass arrests and
suspended civil liberties.
Trump has reinforced that shift with electoral endorsements, financial
bailouts and millions of dollars in military aid.
"The U.S. is certainly putting its finger on the scale to try to help the
more hard-line right-wing elements in the region," said Kenneth Roberts, a
professor of government at Cornell University.
Brazil would have been Washington's most consequential addition. Bolsonaro
had promised to join the U.S.-led security coalition "with great enthusiasm and
great honor," making his alliance with Trump part of his pitch to voters.
Lula, by contrast, has championed Brazil's long tradition of nonalignment,
cultivating ties with competing powers. His government deepened trade ties with
China and sought greater global influence through BRICS, a group of emerging
economies.
Trump's heavy-handed support for the Bolsonaros played into that message.
The double-digit tariffs he imposed on a range of Brazilian goods to punish
Brazil for prosecuting former President Jair Bolsonaro over a coup plot to oust
Lula stirred a nationalist backlash that the leftist leader channeled into the
rallying cry "Brazil belongs to Brazilians."
"To the extent that the regional superpower becomes a threat to Brazil's
democratic institutions, defending Brazilian national sovereignty also becomes
a form of defending Brazilian democracy," Roberts said.
Lula's red lines
Brazil resisted joining the Shield of the Americas, a U.S.-led military
coalition targeting cartels.
When Washington in May designated Brazil's two largest criminal factions,
the First Capital Command and the Red Command, as terrorist organizations, Lula
warned the labels could become a pretext for American intervention.
"We don't accept being treated like children," he said after the
announcement. Of the gangs, he added: "We will fight them here at home."
Countries along the main northbound cocaine and migrant routes, many of them
heavily dependent on the U.S. market, have been more accommodating. In Ecuador,
U.S. troops have joined local police in raids targeting suspected drug networks
across the coastal lowlands. Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia have also agreed
to joint military operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said,
though Guatemala's government has denied it.
"Brazil is not Honduras. It's a large country with a very independent
history and a military that would not look kindly upon foreign troops in its
own territory," said Brian Winter, a veteran Latin America analyst and
editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, a policy journal. "The Trump
administration will have to walk a certain line here."
Washington may also have less reason to press Lula on military cooperation.
Most of the cocaine moving through Brazil is consumed in the country or shipped
to Europe and Africa, rather than the U.S.
On critical minerals, Lula wants Brazil to control its resources and
preserve its freedom to sell beyond the U.S.
Brazil holds the world's second-largest known reserves of rare earths, used
in powerful magnets for guided missiles, smartphones, wind turbines and
electric vehicles.
Last month, USA Rare Earth, in which the U.S. government holds a stake,
completed its $2.8 billion takeover of Serra Verde, the Brazilian firm that
owns one of the few mines outside of Asia producing all four rare earths needed
for those magnets. Alarmed by the expanding U.S. role, Lula's administration
fast-tracked legislation tightening oversight of critical minerals.
"Revisiting the Serra Verde-USA Rare Earth deal may not be the first thing
that Lula does when he's reelected, but it's on his radar," said Monica de
Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Brazil also produces about 90% of the world's niobium, a critical element
for jet, rocket engines and other military hardware, according to the U.S.
Geological Survey. Any Brazilian export restrictions could disrupt supply
chains for U.S. defense manufacturers.
"Brazil has leverage," de Bolle said. "With Lula, the U.S. is on shakier
ground."
Compromise at home and abroad
For all his defiant public statements, Lula has sought peace with Trump. His
White House visit in May to discuss trade, organized crime and critical
minerals undercut the Bolsonaros' claim that only they could deal with
Washington.
More bargaining with Trump surely lies ahead over tariffs and with Brazil's
Congress, where conservatives expanded their ranks in the Oct. 4 elections,
depriving Lula of the backing he needs to institute meaningful reforms. After
three previous terms, Lula confronts voters impatient for safer streets and
relief from the high cost of living.
"Lula has his hands tied," said Guilherme Casaroes, an associate professor
of Brazilian studies at Florida International University. "Pretty much
everything he has tried to do has been blocked in Congress."
Across Latin America, coalitions that united against a common opponent have
often splintered as the realities of governing set in. Trump's new allies are
already losing support in Chile, Bolivia and Peru, suggesting the region's
rightward turn may be less durable than it appears. Lula bucked the
anti-incumbent trend, but his support could evaporate quickly as he bargains
with opponents -- in Congress and beyond Brazil's borders -- to deliver the
results voters expect.
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