Trump's plans for Brazil

Now that US President Donald Trump has taken office, the question that generally lingers in the minds of Brazilians concerns the imminent US foreign policy towards Brazil, considered strategic in the 21st century. The first imaginable scenario – therefore, the one that seems obvious – is related to the conjecture of an attempt by the United States to exert maximum pressure on its South American partner in order to distance it from the BRICS, especially China and Russia. In this case, Brazilian exports would be subjected to surcharges and, indirectly, attempts would be made to destabilize the Lula government with the aim of weakening or even overthrowing it.

In the worst-case scenario from Washington's point of view, the Brazilian president would become easy prey in the 2026 elections, preferably being defeated by a far-right politician. Evidently, acting unofficially, the White House could mobilize the powerful machine of disinformation or counter-information and media manipulation provided by fake news, driven, in turn, by big tech companies and their social networks. It is certain that it will do so. On the other hand, Trump, historically counting on the support of a large part of the Brazilian elites – who cannot stand Lula – would opt to orchestrate a grand conspiracy.

Similar to Lava Jato, a new operation would emerge to provide political, legal, and institutional support for the attempt to overthrow the Brazilian president. This is not a difficult assumption. Given the ideological contamination of the US government, clearly demonstrated during Trump's inauguration events, much will be invested in removing the current Brazilian leader. After all, besides the fact that Lula represents a regime considered center-left or social-democratic, there is the need for the US to control, in order to continue exploiting, the riches of Latin America. But it will soon become clear to the White House that Brazil will not distance itself from China.

Inexorable multipolarity

This reinforces the perception that internal and external turbulence tends to increase for the Palácio do Planalto (Brazilian Presidential Palace). If the Americans haven't yet understood this dynamic – and apparently they haven't – of inexorable global multipolarity, they will soon react as predicted, with ever greater intensity and impetus. This is about countering the reality, currently marked, for example – in this specific case – by the fact that the Chinese are by far Brazil's largest trading partner, a relationship in which the Latin American side is largely in surplus. But this partnership is much broader and deeper, involving significant investments in areas such as infrastructure.

In the present context, there would be no room for the Yankees to believe in an unlikely distancing of Brazil from the BRICS, a quite solid geopolitical engineering, whose global commitment is to include as many nations as possible that aspire to their own development. Tired of centuries of exploitation by Western powers, countries from the South American, African, and Asian continents are beginning to group themselves around the surprising axis created by the BRICS. Therefore, it will not be through force, resurrected from the infamous Monroe Doctrine, that it will be possible to subjugate our sovereignty and our economic and social interests in favor of a revisited version of this sad system.

The empire's wrath will become even more strident and dangerous as the complex and orchestrated effort to abandon the dollar as the medium of exchange in commercial transactions between countries of the Global South progresses, replacing the US currency with initiatives such as abandoning the SWIFT system. Brazil is a protagonist in this process, led by former President Dilma Rousseff, current president of the NDB (New Bank of BRICS), to adopt an alternative network developed by the bloc. The pursuit of implementing a new mechanism for international interbank transfers, to the detriment of SWIFT and the dollar, is likely to fuel the fire of pressures, retaliations, and conspiracies unleashed by Washington.