Brazil Voted To Re-elect Lula. Trump’s Allies Aren’t Happy.

President Donald Trump has been playing nice this year with Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva amid high-stakes trade talks. After Lula’s shock re-election Sunday, some Trump insiders and leading MAGA voices want the U.S. to take a much harder line.

The surprising defeat of far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in the second round of Brazil’s presidential contest has triggered a flurry of outrage in Trump’s orbit, with some casting doubt on the results.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview Monday that the result was a “cautionary tale for the midterms” after a Brazilian Supreme Court justice extended voting Sunday. Adviser Jason Miller re-shared a Bolsonaro campaign statement saying it was “impossible” to recognize the election results. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson with Turning Point USA and executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, questioned how Lula was able to flip so much support between the first and second rounds of the election.

With Bolsonaro refusing to concede, the outcome in the eyes of certain Trump allies has parallels with Trump in the 2020 election. Some are also framing another Lula term as bad for U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere amid a power struggle with China, which is seeking closer economic ties with Brazil.

“The problem with Lula is not just that he can't be trusted, but also that he is owned and operated by communist China,” Navarro said.

If Trump were to hit back at Lula over the election results, threatening new tariffs would be one of his most likely tools. The White House has already laid the legal groundwork with a trade investigation. But that would inevitably reignite trade tensions between two of the largest economies in the Western Hemisphere and unleash economic fallout that would potentially rattle midterm voters already furious over rising prices. It’s also not clear Trump feels the same allegiance to the younger Bolsonaro that he has shown for his father.

Trump himself told reporters Monday that Brazil’s election “looked so, so corrupt, so terrible” and that it “looked like another rigged election.” But he stopped short of pledging intervention when asked whether he planned to do something.

Trump said he is “not running Brazil” and that he gets along with Lula “very well” — relatively warm words for the president.

The Trump administration slapped a 50% tariff on Brazil in July 2025 after claiming Lula’s government had engaged in “political persecution” for its investigation into Flávio’s father, Jair, who lost to Lula in 2022. Lula hit back by calling Trump a would-be “emperor.”

But after several one-on-one conversations with Lula — and a high-profile embrace at last year’s United Nations General Assembly — relations have thawed, and the two governments are now in active trade talks.

Dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro’s father was hailed by Trump and his MAGA allies when he won the Brazilian presidency on a hard-right platform in 2018. The two men built a friendly relationship and his family cultivated close ties with then-Trump advisers like Steve Bannon and Miller. Bolsonaro and his brothers have tried to leverage those same ties after their father lost his reelection bid in 2022, and was later convicted of trying to plot a coup to stay in power — but with less success.

Bolsonaro lobbied Trump personally in a May Oval Office meeting to delay new U.S. tariffs on Brazil from going into effect until after the election, arguing that launching them would anger Brazilian voters there and push them toward Lula, who has campaigned on standing up to Trump. Washington went ahead anyway in July.

Trump never endorsed Bolsonaro in the runoff, though he praised his first-round victory over Lula in early October.

Lula is framing Sunday's vote as critical to protecting the country's democracy and independence. Election observers have noted that the number of ballots cast after the regular voting hours would not have been enough to change the results.

“Trump is a much bigger character in Lula’s political story than Lula is in Trump’s,” said a former White House national security official close to the administration with deep expertise on U.S.-Latin America relations, granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of their comments.

“I would expect the relationship to get rougher,” the person added. “Trump already has trade and political grievances with Brazil, and Lula’s victory gives him little reason to soften. More tariffs or other economic pressure would not surprise me.”

The White House referred back to the president’s remarks when asked for comment. The Brazilian government redirected multiple requests for comment. The Chinese embassy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Office of the U.S Trade Representative said it has “has engaged in frequent consultations with Brazilian officials, including most recently at the G20 Trade Ministers meeting,” adding that it “expects to continue engaging with Brazil regarding longstanding and serious trade concerns.”

Hiking tariffs on Brasília would not only set back the ongoing U.S. trade talks, but would have major economic and geopolitical downsides. The U.S. is a major importer of Brazilian oranges, coffee and cocoa, among other ag products.

As trade talks progressed between the two countries this year, Trump signed a proclamation in August allowing more beef into the U.S. — including from Brazil — in a bid to help lower consumer prices.

The White House is also eager for U.S. access to Brazil’s rare earth minerals — Brazil holds the world’s second-largest reserves after China. Opening up Brazil’s rare earth supply to the U.S. has been one of the Trump administration’s key objectives as it’s cultivated closer ties with Lula’s government over the past year, in a bid to break Beijing’s grip on minerals used in high-tech equipment including fighter jets and electric vehicles.

Lula is in a much “stronger position today than he was a year ago, and in particular on the critical mineral front,” said Mark Langevin, a senior adviser focused on Latin America and energy policy at Horizon Engage, a geopolitical risk advisory firm.

“Washington has a lot to gain by cooperation with Lula,” Langevin added “But it’s going to have to concede the victory and then move forward in a constructive fashion.”

New tariffs, meanwhile, would risk pushing Brazil closer to China, one of the leading buyers of Brazilian agriculture products.

Lula’s allies are warning the Trump administration that any challenge to the legitimacy of the election would be a waste of time.

“The extreme right is … trying to dispute the results but that won’t have too much oxygen,” said one person close to the Brazilian president, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. “They will quickly have to come to grips with reality, so if [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio or Trump are talking or not talking — this will not change one comma of our political process here.”

The person said that the Brazilian government has been waiting on USTR to engage in a trade working group the two sides set up during a meeting in Milwaukee last month.

“The ball is with them now,” the person said.

Oliver Ward contributed reporting.