U.S. and Brazilian politics have exhibited uncanny similarities over the past decade, marked by growing polarization, the rise of right-wing populism and the crisis of moderate conservatism. President Jair Bolsonaro’s ascent reflected both a long-standing Latin American tradition of nationalist, military-linked leadership and President Donald Trump’s transnational influence on populist movements. Trump’s 2016 victory helped legitimize Bolsonaro’s 2018 victorious candidacy and emboldened the administration. President Joe Biden’s 2020 election disrupted this ideological alignment, isolating Bolsonaro diplomatically and exposing the limits of his pro-Trump strategy.
The Biden administration’s early recognition of Bolsonaro’s authoritarian tendencies, and concerns that Bolsonaro would attempt to illegally hold on to power if he lost the 2022 elections, led Washington to discreetly pressure Brazil’s military leadership to respect the electoral outcome—an approach vindicated when Bolsonaro did, in fact, refuse to concede and his supporters stormed Brasília on January 8, 2023, mirroring the January 6 insurrection in Washington two years earlier. The institutional resilience of Brazil’s Supreme Court and electoral authorities contained the crisis, culminating in Bolsonaro’s 2025 conviction for plotting a coup— a landmark decision by Brazil’s judiciary that broke the country’s long history of pardoning and reintegrating coup perpetrators into political life. By then, however, Trump was back in office and the verdict reignited bilateral tensions. The second Trump administration’s application of 50% tariffs on many Brazilian products, visa revocations targeting Supreme Court justices, and Magnitsky Act sanctions against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—all under the pretext of “judicial persecution.” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro, now faces the challenge of dealing with Washington’s aggressive tariff policy, while containing the domestic costs of U.S. economic retaliation.
While only 12% of Brazil’s exports go to the United States – far less than what Brazil exports to China – U.S. tariffs have inflicted measurable economic damage, with Brazilian exports to the United States dropping by roughly 20 percent to $2.6 billion in September 2025 from $3.2 billion in September 2024. Although certain sectors—such as wood pulp and select iron-and-steel categories—were temporarily exempted, the tariff shock disrupted supply chains, casting considerable uncertainty over Brazil’s economic ties to the United States. Lula’s government has responded by accelerating efforts to diversify export markets, seeking new trade ties with partners such as Vietnam, Mexico, Argentina and the European Union. Brazil’s public and private sectors alike have come to view diversification as a strategic imperative rather than a policy choice.
