{"id":859807,"date":"2026-09-25T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859807\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T05:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T05:12:08","slug":"lula-says-trump-wants-to-colonise-and-capture-brazils-resources-by-meddling-in-election-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859807\/","title":{"rendered":"Lula says Trump wants to \u2018colonise\u2019 and capture Brazil\u2019s resources by meddling in election | Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva\u2019s<\/a> presidential campaign has accused Donald Trump of wanting to \u201ccolonise\u201d Brazil in order to capture its natural resources by meddling in next month\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n

The accusation came in a televised campaign advert<\/a> that was broadcast on Thursday by Lula\u2019s team amid growing fears over the impact alleged US interference could have on the vote.<\/p>\n

The TV spot claimed the US president was trying to sway the election in favour of Lula\u2019s far-right adversary in the election, Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, in order to advance Trump\u2019s interests in the South American nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro is Trump\u2019s candidate and what Trump wants is to colonise Brazil<\/a>, take our riches, steal our future and leave us in the dust,\u201d the female narrator tells viewers in the minute-long video.<\/p>\n

The state department has denied claims the US is meddling in Brazil\u2019s election. \u201cAny insinuation of a \u2018ploy\u2019 to undermine a democratic nation\u2019s election is a baseless lie,\u201d it said last month in a statement.<\/p>\n

Writing on X, Lula accused Bolsonaro of wanting to \u201chand our natural resources over to the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s up to him, Brazil will become a colony again,\u201d the incumbent leftwing president added.<\/p>\n

With just over a week to go until the 4 October first round vote, Lula and Bolsonaro are neck and neck in the polls. A second round run-off will be held on 25 October if no candidate secures more than half of the votes.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, there has been growing alarm \u2013 both in Brazil and overseas \u2013 about Washington\u2019s apparent attempts to influence the result, with a campaign of diplomatic and economic pressure, including 25% tariffs on Brazilian imports.<\/p>\n

Workers prepare electronic voting machines during a sealing operation before being used in the first round of Brazilian elections. Photograph: Adriano Machado\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York this week, Lula indirectly criticised the US\u2019 perceived meddling, telling delegates: \u201cWe will not allow the enemies of democracy \u2013 internal or external \u2013 to attack the will of the people. Brazilian democracy belongs to the Brazilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, dozens of Democratic party congresspeople<\/a> wrote to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to denounce the Trump administration\u2019s \u201capparent effort to interfere with, and potentially undermine\u201d Brazil<\/a>\u2019s elections through what they called a \u201csustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilisation in Brazil\u201d.<\/p>\n

The narrator of Lula\u2019s campaign ad cited a series of recent media stories relating to alleged acts of US meddling.<\/p>\n

They include reports about the alleged interference of Big Tech companies as well as a confidential document sent to electoral authorities by Brazil\u2019s intelligence agency warning of a \u201ccritical level\u201d of risk of US interference. The campaign video also highlighted recent claims about links between Bolsonaro\u2019s campaign and the conservative donor network Rockbridge, which was co-founded by Trump\u2019s vice-president JD Vance.<\/p>\n

\u00c9den Valadares, the communications secretary for Lula\u2019s Worker\u2019s party (PT), said the campaign ad was part of efforts to \u201calert the Brazilian people\u201d to the ideologically-driven US campaign. \u201cWe don\u2019t believe it will work but nor will we sit back and do nothing,\u201d Valadares said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Lula has instructed us \u2026 to mobilise Brazilian society \u2026 [and] to react in the streets,\u201d added Valadares, who said a nationwide series of events were being planned for this Sunday.<\/p>\n

Fears over US meddling are not confined to the Brazilian left. This week, another of the right-wing candidates in Brazil\u2019s election, Renan Santos, also denounced Trump\u2019s behaviour and said he did not want Brazil to become a US vassal state. \u201cThey want to interfere in Brazil\u2019s elections to secure satisfactory contracts involving rare earths,\u201d Santos claimed in a social media video.<\/p>\n

Recalling the US invasion of Venezuela in January, Santos added: \u201cI don\u2019t want to see Latin America become an American protectorate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the letter sent to Rubio on Friday, the Democratic lawmakers wrote that \u201crather than helping defend Brazilian democracy\u201d, the US was \u201cacting as an agent of interference and destabilisation \u2013 using diplomatic, economic and political pressure in ways that risk weakening the country\u2019s democratic institutions, undermining confidence in Brazil\u2019s electoral process, and inflicting further damage on our relationship with a strategic US ally and trading partner\u201d.<\/p>\n

They asked Rubio if Trump\u2019s administration would commit to respecting Brazil\u2019s electoral process and requested a response by 1 October. The state department has not yet responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva\u2019s presidential campaign has accused Donald Trump of wanting to \u201ccolonise\u201d Brazil in order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-859807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}