Brazil

Last month, two State Department officials were set to make what they called a routine visit to Brazil, ahead of October’s presidential election. Their stated objective was an assessment of election integrity, religious freedom and freedom of expression in Latin America’s largest democracy. Brazil was not convinced. It slammed the door in their faces and denied their visas.  Washington insists its diplomats were simply sent to ask questions. Brasília cries foreign interference from a nation that has a history of meddling in Latin American politics. Tensions between the two largest democracies in the Americas have not run this high in decades.

As American eyes remain fixed on the Middle East — understandably so — China has been rolling out the red carpet for Latin America, and we have barely noticed. While Xi Jinping welcomes Colombia, one of Washington’s historically reliable allies, into the controversial Belt and Road Initiative, he’s also introducing visa-free entry for South America’s largest economies and greeting regional leaders in Beijing with billion-dollar credit lines and lavish, all-expenses-paid political junkets. Washington, meanwhile, was… busy. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The US has been snoozing through Latin America’s strategic realignment for years, occasionally waking up to mutter something about narcos or illegal migration, then hitting the snooze button.

Brazilian former president Jair Bolsonaro was charged Tuesday for allegedly orchestrating a plan to overturn his 2022 election defeat through a coup. The indictment further complicates his prospects for a political resurgence, as Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet accuses Bolsonaro and his former vice presidential candidate, General Walter Braga Netto, of leading a “criminal organization” with the objective of undermining Brazil’s democracy. Thirty-four individuals, including prominent military figures, have been named in the charges. Among them are Bolsonaro’s former national security advisor, retired general Augusto Heleno, and former navy commander Almir Garnier Santos.

The “Trump of the Tropics,” former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, was indicted Tuesday for falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination status for his Florida vacation. The indictment is the first faced by the conservative leader, who has already been barred from running for office. More are headed his way, in what he is describing as a lawfare effort spearheaded by President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. The indictment was signed by Detective Fábio Alvarez Shor, who says in his report that the former president and his aides “issue[d] their respective [vaccination] certificates and use[d] them to cheat current health restrictions.

Americans are used to exercising influence through international entities such as NATO, the World Trade Organization or the World Bank. Each of these groups was set up with American leadership or at its instigation; all have been used to advance Washington’s vision of global liberal-democratic capitalism. No comparable international organization or collection of nations has been influential since the Soviet Union’s collapse. That may be changing. The so-called BRICS alliance (its founding countries were Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) recently added new members Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

At the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last year, President Joe Biden announced the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which the White House described as “a historic new agreement to drive our hemisphere’s economy recovery and growth and deliver for our working people.” The plan has become the administration’s signature Latin America policy. As noted by the White House, the region matters not solely because it’s where the US is situated, but because it also accounts for 32 percent of global GDP. Even more so, the region is rich in resources that are crucial in the development of emerging technologies.