Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andre Pagliarini
“[T]here’s a reason Washington’s tariffs and the Brazilian presidential race have become inseparable. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the convicted former president and Lula’s likely opponent in the October election, visited Trump, Rubio, and other senior officials in Washington in May. He returned to lobby USTR directly again in July, this time asking for a 180-day delay so the tariffs wouldn’t land before Brazilians voted. His argument was candid about the politics involved: imposing the tariffs now, he told American officials, would hand Lula ‘precisely the political victory’ the president’s campaign has been ‘engineering.’ Lula, for his part, has accused the senator, whose brother advocated for Trump’s trade war against Brazil last year, of committing ‘yet another act of treason against the Fatherland.'” (07/20/26)