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In 1817, U.S. President James Monroe sent lawyer Henry M. Brackenridge to South America to advise on U.S. policy toward the region. The vast Portuguese colony of Brazil stood out to Brackenridge in part because it was not experiencing the violent upheavals of the independence movements rocking Spanish America. “As an American, I cannot but feel a kind of pride in looking forward to the lofty destinies of this new world,” he wrote afterward, concluding that “when we consider the vast capacities and resources of Brazil, it is not visionary to say, that this empire is destined to be our rival.”
Brazil today is not a rival of the United States, but some Western commentators worry that it has not done enough to distance itself from Washington’s antagonists. Under the center-left government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected in 2022 after serving as president from 2003 to 2011, Brazil has engaged more than ever with the BRICS bloc, which aspires to a world order independent of U.S. hegemony. Lula’s stances on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Russia’s war in Ukraine have also occasionally created friction with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Both sides, however, have sought to ease any impression of lasting animosity. “We can have these disagreements, even profound disagreements, … and still continue all of the vital work that we’re doing together,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Rio de Janeiro in February.
This year, which marks the bicentennial of U.S. recognition of Brazilian independence, will test ties between the hemisphere’s two largest democracies. The outcome of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5 will inevitably affect Brazil
The obvious reading is that a victory for former U.S. President Donald Trump, with his unilateralist and protectionist approach to foreign policy, would create new challenges for Brazil, especially on trade and environmental issues. Trump’s first term was characterized by nationalist, protectionist, and xenophobic stances that generated friction with governments around the world. A second Trump win would likely accelerate Brazilian efforts to seek new alliances and further diversify its economic relationships.
By the same token, common sense holds that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, she could facilitate closer cooperation between Brazil and the United States in areas such as combating climate change and strengthening democratic institutions. These were points of mutual interest that produced a relatively close working relationship between the Biden and Lula administrations.
Labor has also been a key area of cooperation. Lula, who rose to prominence as a union leader in the 1970s, struck an amiable tone during a bilateral meeting with Biden in New York in September 2023 to launch a new coalition in defense of labor rights. Praising his host, he said: “I’ve never seen before a U.S. president talk so much and so well of the workers as you.” Like Biden, Harris has emphasized multilateralism and international cooperation on the campaign trail.
The potential effects of a Republican victory are much less predictable. Lula is a leftist who leads a centrist government, due to the realities of Brazil’s coalition politics. He is not in the same political camp as Trump. Yet that does not mean there would automatically be conflict between them. After Barack Obama was elected to succeed George W. Bush as U.S. president in 2008, Lula told the Wall Street Journal that “Bush’s policies toward Brazil were dignified. But I think they can be infinitely better with Obama.”
Obama, in a famous gesture of appreciation toward his Brazilian counterpart, in 2009 called Lula “the most popular politician on Earth.” However, despite Bush’s bellicose foreign policy and that Lula had criticized Bush, the Brazilian president would conclude in 2018 that “in relation to Brazil, Bush and Condoleezza [Rice] were much more democratic than Obama and Hillary Clinton.” He meant that Bush proved more likely than Obama to keep his word—and allowed Brazil to pursue its own foreign policy even in the face of disagreement with the United States.
Lula said that Obama “could give magnificent speeches on any important issue but never actually delivered on his promises”—a reference to the former president’s failure to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which many Latin American progressives consider a stain on human rights. Celso Amorim, Lula’s former foreign minister and current special advisor on foreign affairs, wrote of Obama in 2017: “Even his friendliness toward Lula in front of the cameras concealed, in my view, a certain degree of condescension, in contrast to the frank and direct approach of Bush.”
Bush, focused on the Middle East, did not pay much attention to South America. This neglect gave Brazil more room to maneuver on the world stage, especially in its own region. Bush, for example, did not criticize Lula’s proximity to socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, counting on Brazil to help balance its neighbor’s open hostility toward the United States. Obama, by contrast, was much more conflicted about ceding any initiative to Brazil, which under Lula sought to weigh in on major global issues.
In 2009, according to Lula and Amorim, Obama asked for Brazilian help in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, which was granted. “Brazil aimed to get the West to partially lift sanctions on Iran if Turkey offered guarantees to safely handle Iran’s enriched uranium,” Jorge Heine and Thiago Rodrigues wrote in Foreign Policy last year. But then, U.S. politics got in the way, and “a new round of U.S. sanctions on Iran tanked the deal.”
In short, the Obama administration solicited Brazilian participation in a high-stakes geopolitical matter and then chafed at the country’s diplomatic efforts—only to find itself effectively making the same deal years later, in 2015. Obama’s waffling prevarication annoyed the Lula government.
In his memoir, Obama described crashing a private meeting between the leaders of Brazil, China, India, and South Africa at the United Nations climate negotiations in 2009, depicting them in an unflattering light. This dramatic confrontation reflected a tendency under Obama for the United States to reassert its global leadership by deferring less to democratic partners in the global south. Biden has notably departed from this trend, but it remains to be seen whether Harris would act more like Obama or Biden.
At 78, Lula is around Trump’s age. Like the former U.S. president, he has occasionally been criticized for jocular yet insensitive remarks about women, minorities, and LGBTQ people. If Trump wins, Lula could, if necessary, seek to establish a throwback kind of working relationship with Trump centered on their strong, charismatic style rather than shared ideology on policy matters.
Tellingly, in an interview he gave while in jail on corruption charges in 2019, Lula described his vision of national leadership in a way that could intersect with Trump’s nationalism. “Does anyone think that the United States will do anything to favor Brazil? Americans think of Americans in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth place. And if they have time left, they think of Americans,” Lula said. “We are the ones who have to do something for us. We need to get over the inferiority complex, raise our heads, and [recognize that] the solution to Brazil’s problems lies within Brazil.”
It is not unthinkable that Trump, who responds to political performance and social cues, would see Lula as a leader worthy of respect.
In considering a possible Lula-Trump relationship, it is worth recalling the relationship between Trump and former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The leftist López Obrador managed a functional relationship with Trump by focusing on common economic interests, such as prioritizing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, agreeing to help enforce Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, and avoiding direct diplomatic confrontations.
In some respects, Brazil might even benefit from a Trump presidency. Trump’s hostility toward the post-World War II global order established and maintained by the United States could further multipolarity, a development that would favor Brazil and serve Lula’s own geopolitical agenda.
Furthermore, in recent months, Lula has begun distancing himself from the authoritarian regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, potentially neutralizing a major source of tension with Trump. Until recently, Lula was arguably the most prominent democratic world leader who was on friendly terms with Maduro. Now, in the aftermath of contested July elections—which Maduro claims without evidence that he won—and amid widespread repression in Venezuela, Brasília and Caracas have escalated a diplomatic standoff.
None of this suggests that a Trump victory is Lula’s preferred outcome. Trump’s protectionist policies could prove especially damaging to Brazilian steel, textiles, and other key exports. Equally concerning is the fact that a Trump win would provide an enormous boost to Lula’s far-right opponents within Brazil, who venerate the former U.S. president.
Lula himself made his preference clear in a February interview with journalist Kennedy Alencar: “Make no mistake, although I am not an American voter,” he said, “I obviously think Biden is more of a guarantee for the survival of the democratic regime in the world and in the United States.” Lula has less in common with Harris but has nevertheless expressed support for her, reportedly telling allies in September that “God willing, Kamala wins the U.S. elections.”
However, the future of the U.S.-Brazil bilateral relationship won’t be up to God. Instead, it will depend on a few thousand voters in a handful of U.S. swing states.
This post is part of FP’s live coverage with global updates and analysis throughout the U.S. election. Follow along here.