Brazil votes on October 4, 2026, and its intelligence agency says the United States is trying to influence the result. According to a report of meetings with French and German officials, written by an attendee and seen by Reuters, officials of Brazil's Abin “confirmed the existence of interference from the United States as well as Russia,” ranging “from lawfare to interference that is openly acknowledged.” The State Department has previously denied seeking to interfere, and Trump has made no explicit endorsement.
The record behind the concern runs through Trump's support for Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a sentence under house arrest for plotting a coup after the 2022 election, according to Reuters. In 2025 Trump imposed a 40 percent tariff on Brazil, accusing its leaders of “persecuting former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro,” Common Dreams reported. A yearlong trade investigation that The Hill says began after a spat between Trump and Lula ended in July 2026 with a 25 percent tariff on certain Brazilian goods, imposed “at President Trump's direction,” per the Trade Representative. In May 2026 Trump hosted Bolsonaro's son Flávio, a presidential candidate, in the Oval Office, then designated Brazil's two biggest gangs as terrorist organizations, a move The New York Times reported followed Bolsonaro lobbying and Lula called interference. Brazil denied visas to State Department adviser Darren Beattie and to a U.S. delegation that, the Guardian reported, sought to cast doubt on its voting system. Trump, per the Times: “Lots of people that I got elected.”
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine and Peter Welch wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “Over the course of President Trump's second term, we have seen U.S. officials engage in a campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil.” Lula: “The Americans better not come trying to influence our elections.” The “clearly illegal” in some headlines is an opinion writer's phrase, not a legal finding.
Update (October 27, 2026): Lula won Brazil's October 25 runoff against Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro by about 4.4 million votes, after Bolsonaro narrowly led the first round, the AP and Reuters reported; the president of Brazil's electoral authority, a Jair Bolsonaro appointee to the Supreme Court, recognized the result. Flávio Bolsonaro had not conceded and said on election night that he would seek an annulment.
Asked on October 26 whether the election was fair, Trump said, “I didn't take sides, but it looked like another rigged election, frankly,” and, “I didn't endorse anybody or anything, but I watched the election.” He offered no evidence, Reuters reported, and added, “I'm not running Brazil. I'm running the USA.”
On October 24, the day before the runoff, Reuters reported, citing 10 current and former U.S. officials, all but one unnamed, that two State Department political appointees, Darren Beattie and Ricardo Pita, led a campaign to return the Bolsonaros to power; three of the sources said the pair told U.S. diplomats it was U.S. policy to restore Jair Bolsonaro, and later backed Flávio.
The measures they pushed included the terrorist designations of Brazil's main gangs and sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Reuters reported, though it could not determine how far they acted on orders from the White House or Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A State Department spokesman said, “The Brazilian people have the right to choose their leaders through free and fair elections.”
Update (October 28, 2026): Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil for the United States, three sources told Reuters, in a report published by NBC News on October 28. A senior State Department official confirmed to NBC News on October 27 that the department “will issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the U.S.” Bolsonaro left after refusing to comply with a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports; the court cited the risk of his fleeing, and the passports were canceled when the 24-hour deadline lapsed, two sources said. On October 26 he had said, “I have never thought about leaving the country.” Lula called the departure shameful.
Trump told reporters he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the United States: “Well, I would approve. I think they're fine people. The election was very strange, and I thought it was terrible,” Reuters reported. He added, “I didn't take sides, you know.”
Update (November 2, 2026): The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal linked Jason Miller, a longtime Trump political strategist who returned to the White House in August as a special government employee, to the private jet that carried Flávio Bolsonaro and his family from Argentina to the Miami area, according to accounts of that reporting by International Business Times UK and The New Republic. The tracker has not read the Times or Journal articles themselves. By those accounts, the Times cited a person familiar with the logistics (an unnamed administration official, in The New Republic's telling), and the Journal described Miller as part of a small group in contact with Eduardo Bolsonaro that secured the jet, with arrangements beginning on October 26. Miller declined to comment to the Times.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. government had not arranged the departure, IBTimes UK reported, adding that Bolsonaro already held a valid U.S. visa and that Trump had authorized humanitarian parole for him if he arrived at a U.S. port of entry.