Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party confirmed on Sunday that he will seek reelection, setting up what is very likely to be his last bid for the presidency and his seventh race for the top job. The announcement lands in the middle of a political machine already crowded with foreign leaders, tariffs, bot fears and the usual scramble over who gets to steer Brazil’s wealth.
Lula, 80, told the party convention that he wants to boost Brazil’s defense industry, protect its rare minerals and ensure that “no Chinese, no American, no French will touch” those resources without respecting Brazil’s sovereignty. That’s the language of a state trying to keep control of the ground beneath its feet while outside powers circle the same prize. “We will have to be much more daring to change a lot of things in this country,” Lula said.
Who Holds the Levers
Edinho Silva, the Workers’ Party chairman, said, “This election in Brazil determines the future of Latin America.” He also said Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia have elected Trump-inspired presidents in the recent past. The party is selling this race as a regional turning point, but the real contest is still being fought through institutions, alliances and the machinery of state power.
Lula has drawn centrist parties away from his right-wing adversary and arrived at the party convention with higher popularity in the polls than six months ago. His campaign is promoting a change to Brazil’s income tax system that charges less to people on low incomes and a debt forgiveness program that has quickly become very popular. Reform is on the table. So is the old game of asking voters to trust the same electoral apparatus to fix what it keeps reproducing.
Foreign Hands, Local Costs
Workers’ Party politicians have expressed concern about foreign-sponsored threats of coordinated automated bot campaigns and social media manipulation aimed at influencing voters and undermining trust in Brazil’s electronic voting system. That’s the modern version of interference: not boots on the ground, but digital pressure aimed at shaping what people think they chose freely.
On Wednesday at the party convention, Lula said he doesn’t want Trump as an enemy. Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who will run again alongside Lula, said Sunday that Brazil’s electronic voting system “is so good that it doesn’t take votes from Argentines and Americans,” in a reference to Milei and Trump. The joke lands because the stakes are real. Elections are being treated like a border wall for legitimacy, even as outside powers keep pushing at it.
The Trump administration has imposed new tariffs on Brazilian exports and changed the designation of two local criminal groups to terrorist groups, moves legal analysts said could hurt companies and open a path for other kinds of intervention. Both moves came after Sen. Bolsonaro visited the White House and the Department of State. That’s how hierarchy works across borders: pressure from above, consequences below.
Sovereignty, Security, and the Same Old Grip
Argentina’s Milei came to Sao Paulo on July 25 to speak at Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party convention and sparked a diplomatic crisis when he insulted Lula and the Supreme Court justice who oversaw the elder Bolsonaro’s trial and conviction over the attempted coup. Netanyahu recorded a video in support of Lula’s adversary. The names change. The power brokers don’t stop performing for one another.
Lula said he is defending Brazil’s national sovereignty and recently held a long call with China’s President Xi Jinping, one of Brazil’s most important trading partners. His supporters say he could lead Mercosur into striking deals with partners worldwide. Brazil is by far the biggest economy in Mercosur, whose other members are Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The language is all sovereignty and partnership, but the fight remains over who gets to command the terms of trade and the resources underneath it.
Like his father, Sen. Bolsonaro has recently tried to sow unfounded doubts about Brazil’s voting system. Those statements raised concerns at Brazil’s foreign ministry, which in July denied visas to two U.S. Department of State officials reportedly because of fears they sought to do the same. The U.S. Department of State denied that claim in a statement. Even the visa fight shows the same pattern: institutions guarding their turf while ordinary people are left to absorb the fallout.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, was an ally of Trump but is now serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for an attempted coup. The state calls that accountability. The rest of the political class calls it a warning. Either way, the system keeps grinding on, and the people at the bottom keep being told to pick a side between bosses.