President Donald Trump on Thursday said he is following the upcoming Brazilian election “very closely,” referring to Brazil as a “very important" country. "The people of Brazil are fantastic people,” he told reporters outside the White House. State Department later announced the suspension of its consular services in Brazil ahead of the election taking place on Sunday, citing unspecified security concerns.
Brazilians are heading to the polls for a set of federal elections spanning congressional and gubernatorial races, alongside the first round of the presidential election votes. It’s set to be a decisive moment for Latin America’s largest nation, as the region has seen a shift toward the right in recent years. An Oct. 25 runoff is expected, as polls show a tight contest between leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and far-right Sen.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted last year for plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss. Trump led the conservative voices denouncing the conviction, referring to the trial as a “witch hunt.” While Trump has acknowledged his active interest as Brazil votes on its political future, there are concerns he could be too involved. Trump and his Administration have been accused of attempting to interfere with the high-stakes overseas election.
In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in late September, Democratic lawmakers expressed “grave concern” over what they referred to as “the Administration’s coordinated effort to threaten our strategic alliance with Brazil and undermine the Western Hemisphere’s second-largest democracy ahead of its upcoming presidential election.” “Over the course of President Trump’s second term, we have seen U.S. officials engage in a sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil,” the lawmakers said in the Sept. 24 letter, signed by 30 House Democrats and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democratic Party. In another letter sent to Rubio on Monday, three Democratic Senators voiced similar concerns about potential U.S. interference.
The Senators argued that the “campaign directed at Brazil’s authorities resumed with the appointment of Darren Beattie as a senior advisor on Brazil issues in the State Department.” Beattie served as a White House speech writer in Trump’s first term, but was axed for attending a gathering of white supremacists. He returned to the fold early on in Trump’s second term. When serving as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs last year, he called one of Brazil’s Supreme Court Judges a “key architect of the censorship and persecution complex directed against Bolsonaro and his supporters.” Accusing the Trump Administration of using “diplomatic, economic, and political pressure in ways that risk weakening [Brazil’s] democratic institutions [and] undermining confidence in Brazil's electoral process,” the Senators closed the letter by asking the Administration to “commit to recognizing the certified outcome of Brazil's 2026 democratic elections.” The White House has staunchly rejected claims of interference in Brazil’s elections.
American elections are the concern of the American people.” Lula added that he is “very worried about Marco Rubio,” claiming that the U.S. Secretary of State “is very closely connected to Bolsonaro’s people,” though he stressed that this was only “suspicion.” TIME has reached out to the State Department for comment. Trump has not formally endorsed either candidate in Brazil’s presidential race, but his defense of former Brazilian President Bolsonaro, who was last year sentenced to 27 years in prison, is well documented.
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