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Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, claps during the first day of the legislative session at the Florida State Capitol on Jan. 13, 2026, in Tallahassee. He is President Donald Trump\u2019s pick for ambassador to Brazil.<\/p>\n
Photo by Matias J. Ocner<\/p>\n
mocner@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Miami\u2019s House Speaker Daniel Perez played his political cards right and got a potential promotion from the Trump administration: a nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to Latin America\u2019s largest country, Brazil.<\/p>\n
Perez isn\u2019t the first South Florida Republican President Trump has picked for an ambassadorship, but the stakes couldn\u2019t be higher for Perez.<\/p>\n
He will be wading through a turbulent relationship between the U.S. and Brazil, an American economic partner. Trump has created that turbulence with tariffs, which he leveraged last year as an attempt to influence Brazil\u2019s judiciary to stop the prosecution of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now there\u2019s even fear in Brazil of American military action<\/a> after the administration labeled two of the country\u2019s criminal gangs as terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n Perez, 38, has been an effective, shrewd legislative leader who provided a much-needed check on the power of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump foe. He also ushered in new congressional districts last month to give Republicans an advantage in the midterms, just as the president had asked. Now Perez is reaping the rewards.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to eventually working together with our dedicated, American public servants in Brazil to help advance the United States interests,\u201d Perez told me via text message.<\/p>\n Brazil hasn\u2019t had a U.S. ambassador since the Biden administration. As a political appointee, Perez will have the job of defending Trump\u2019s attempts to browbeat the Western Hemisphere\u2019s second-largest democracy.<\/p>\n In Miami, conversations about Latin America often center on socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. Brazil has a leftist president elected in a fair election but, whether Trump likes that or not, Brazil \u2014 with all its problems \u2014 remains a sovereign nation.<\/p>\n The U.S. Senate must still confirm Perez\u2019s nomination. Assuming he is confirmed and relocates to Bras\u00edlia, Perez, who\u2019s Cuban-American, will probably have to learn a lot more than just Portuguese. (It\u2019s unclear if he already speaks the language).<\/p>\n He may need to brush up on basic history: Brazil returned to democratic rule in the 1980s \u2014 a year before I was born in S\u00e3o Paulo \u2014 following a 21-year military dictatorship. My parents were teens and young adults during the peak years of oppression, censorship and the torture and killing of regime opponents. I grew up hearing how my mom was almost caught at a military checkpoint with anti-regime college newspapers hidden in her car.<\/p>\n Brazilians are often in denial about that dark part of our history. With the rise of Bolsonaro’s far-right politics, his celebration of the nation\u2019s 1964 coup<\/a> and praising of a notorious torturer<\/a> of the dictatorship era, many Brazilians act as if losing democracy perhaps wasn\u2019t so bad.<\/p>\n Some Bolsonaro supporters even camped outside military facilities after he lost his 2022 reelection, asking the armed forces to stage a coup. They also stormed the federal government buildings in Bras\u00edlia in 2023, defacing the country\u2019s democratic institutions. (Echoes of Jan. 6, anyone?)<\/p>\n Bolsonaro is now serving a 27-year sentence for his attempt to overturn his 2022 loss. That appears to have made Trump even fonder of him \u2014 the U.S. went as far as imposing sanctions on the Brazilian Supreme Court judge in charge of the investigation into Bolsonaro. The sanctions were lifted in December.<\/p>\n Bolsonaro\u2019s son, Flavio, is now running against leftist President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva in the fall. Trump looks ready to use America\u2019s might to try to sway the elections in favor of the younger Bolsonaro<\/a>, who visited the White House last month.<\/p>\n All of this suggests that America\u2019s goal today isn\u2019t to promote democracy in the Americas, but to ensure ideological alignment. It\u2019s about exporting the MAGA model to Bras\u00edlia, Buenos Aires or Bogot\u00e1. If another Bolsonaro is elected, Trump will certainly get an opportunity to exert control.<\/p>\n Brazil, for all its problems with corruption and organized crimes, isn\u2019t Venezuela or Cuba. Trump should be building alliances to ward off Chinese influence in the region. That would be in America\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n Perez, no doubt, has a big task ahead of him. I hope that entails creating more stability in U.S.-Latin American relations and not more turmoil in America\u2019s approach to the region\u2019s largest nation.<\/p>\n Isadora Rangel is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board.<\/p>\n
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