Brazil’s presidential election in October is shaping up as a proxy contest between Washington and Beijing, and Donald Trump’s tariff policy may be handing his own side a loss.
With less than three months until the vote, polls show incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a Beijing-friendly leftist, running neck and neck with his pro-Washington challenger. But the dynamics of the race are not what the White House expected.
Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian exports in July, citing former President Jair Bolsonaro’s trial for an attempted coup. The move was seen as an attempt to pressure Brazil’s government. Instead, it gave Lula a powerful nationalist rallying cry. The Brazilian leader adopted a strong stance against the tariffs, and his approval ratings rose.
The Washington Post reported that the tariffs now threaten to tip the election in Lula’s favor, at the expense of the candidate Trump would prefer to see win.
Brazil’s challenger, backed by Washington, has struggled to gain traction on a platform that would align the country more closely with the United States. Lula, meanwhile, has deepened ties with China, Brazil’s largest trading partner. In a call with President Xi Jinping this week, Xi told Lula that Beijing supports Brazil in safeguarding its sovereignty and independence and opposing external interference, a barely coded reference to Trump’s tariff pressure.
The stakes are enormous. Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America and a key player in the BRICS bloc. A Lula victory would cement Brazil’s tilt toward China and the Global South. A challenger victory would give Washington a foothold in a region where Chinese influence has grown rapidly.
China is watching the race closely. State media have framed the election as a choice between sovereignty and submission to US pressure. The Chancay port in neighboring Peru, a Chinese-built megaport that is already reshaping South American trade routes, shows what Beijing can offer regional partners who resist Washington.
Trump’s tariff strategy was supposed to punish Brazil. Instead, it may do exactly the opposite of what he intended: hand Lula a second term and push Brazil further into Beijing’s orbit.