Despite the professionalism of Itamaraty (Brazil\u2019s Foreign Ministry) and the traditionally careful diplomacy of Lula da Silva\u2014let us recall his good relations with George W. Bush and Barack Obama\u2014a diplomatic clash has occurred between the United States and Brazil. There has been much speculation and exaggeration about the dispute, with some eager to frame it as a definitive and convenient rupture, but its origin appears to be more tangible and also circumstantial. <\/p>\n\n
Donald Trump views Jair Bolsonaro as one of his lieutenants in Latin America. The networks of the new right are stronger than many would like to believe, and since Trump\u2019s first term, they have been focused on bringing leaders like Bolsonaro, Javier Milei, and Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast to power in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. This is the long-standing project of the late Olavo de Carvalho and Steve Bannon\u2014one that Marco Rubio and the US State Department have now embraced. <\/p>\n\n
That right-wing movement is deeply committed to ensuring Bolsonaro\u2019s impunity, who, like Trump in the United States, attempted a coup in Brazil to stay in office and block Lula from taking power. Just as they managed Trump\u2019s return to the White House, they want Bolsonaro\u2019s return to the Palacio do Planalto. The ongoing legal case against the Brazilian right-winger and the possibility of his disqualification are the biggest obstacles to that goal. <\/p>\n\n
The antiliberalism of this right stems from a reaction against financial globalization and the liberalization of global trade in recent decades, which they blame\u2014rightly so\u2014for the rise of China and the emergence of a multipolar world order. The diagnosis made by alter-globalist leftists twenty years ago was mistaken: the world did not become more unipolar, but more multipolar in the early 21st century\u2014and the new right hates this. <\/p>\n\n
But this right is not only antiliberal; it is also staunchly anticommunist, with the peculiarity that it labels all leftist movements as communist. Lula, Petro, Sheinbaum, and Boric are all \u201ccommunists,\u201d according to Trump and his followers. This homogenization of the left is essential to their rhetoric, functioning as an electoral ploy to rally support from neoliberal or centrist right-wing factions that may not agree with the new protectionist turn toward increased tariffs. <\/p>\n\n
The return to protectionism through global trade tariffs, which fragment regional integration zones\u2014including North America\u2014is real. Hence the deep hostility of Trumpism toward the BRICS, China, and also the European Union. This pressure via tariffs is a tool, not necessarily an end in itself, and can function more as a threat aimed at reinforcing unilateralism. <\/p>\n\n
For that unilateralist objective, Bolsonaro\u2019s impunity and return to the presidency would be ideal. The current pressure is clearly geared toward the upcoming 2026 elections. However, the situation could shift rapidly if, as signs suggest, Lula\u2019s popularity rises as a result of Trump\u2019s attacks, and Trumpism itself loses strength in next year\u2019s US legislative elections. <\/p>\n\n
For now, this year, we will see Trumpism align itself with Milei in Argentina and with Kast in Chile, while the pressure against Lula remains. I pointed that out late last year when Trump won the presidency. From a Latin American perspective, it is, however you look at it, a mistake to think that Trump\u2019s protectionism or isolationism is preferable to the Democrats\u2019 globalism. <\/p>\n\n
The response to Trumpism from the progressive Latin American governments, which will soon meet in Santiago, Chile, if it is to be more effective regionally, should include greater firmness in the face of ALBA authoritarianism. Not through embargoes and isolationism, as Boric maintains, but through documented denunciations of repression and despotism. <\/p>\n\n