Trump seeks to ‘colonize’ Brazil, seize its wealth through election meddling: Lula

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has warned that US President Donald Trump is seeking to undermine Brazil’s sovereignty and gain control over its natural resources by interfering in the country’s upcoming presidential election.

“Trump wants to colonize Brazil,” Lula said in a one-minute campaign advertisement released by his election team on Thursday, ahead of the October 4 presidential vote.

The advertisement portrayed right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula’s main rival, as Trump’s preferred candidate and said the US president was seeking access to Brazil’s resources through his support for Bolsonaro.

“Flávio Bolsonaro is Trump’s candidate and what Trump wants is to colonize Brazil, take our riches, steal our future and leave us in the dust,” a female narrator says in the advertisement.

Lula also took to X, writing: “If it’s up to him, Brazil will become a colony again.”

The warning comes amid growing tensions between Brasília and Washington, with Lula repeatedly rejecting US attempts to interfere in Brazil’s political affairs.

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Addressing the UN General Assembly earlier this week, Lula warned against foreign interference in the October election, declaring that “Brazilian democracy belongs to Brazilians” and that the country would not allow its democratic process to be undermined.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on Brazilian goods, while Washington has also taken other diplomatic and economic measures that Brazilian officials have linked to the broader dispute between the two countries. 

The concerns are not limited to Lula’s government. Thirty-one Democratic members of the US Congress have written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, describing a “sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil.”

The lawmakers said the Trump administration was using diplomatic, economic and political pressure in ways that risk weakening Brazil’s democratic institutions, undermining confidence in its electoral process and damaging relations with a major US ally and trading partner.

They cited the administration’s tariffs and other measures involving Brazil, and called on Washington to respect the outcome of the October election.

“Brazil does not belong in anyone’s backyard,” Lula said in his UN address, warning against renewed foreign interference and attempts to divide Latin America into spheres of influence.

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