The United States is interfering in the Brazilian presidential elections, pressuring the Brazilian electorate into voting for right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro. If that does not work and President Lula da Silva secures a fourth term in office, the groundwork is already being laid for a potential military intervention. From sanctions and economic warfare, to coaching influencers and journalists on how best to attack the left-wing government, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to overthrow Lula. Meanwhile, the State Department’s recent decision to designate Brazilian gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations” just as it did with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, signals a willingness to intervene militarily. Brazil is Trump’s next target, and builds upon recent U.S. and Israeli interference in May’s Colombian elections, where pro-Trump candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won a razor-thin victory. MintPress examines the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine Brazilian democracy and install another Bolsonaro back into power.
by Alan MacLeod
Part 5 - Life in America's backyard
Lula is now seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office. And even though he has been a major political figure since the 1980s, he has maintained a significant level of popular support. Born into a lower working-class family, he worked as a shoeshine boy and a metalworker, losing part of his left hand in an industrial accident while still a teenager. He entered politics at a metalworkers’ union leader in 1969, under the repressive U.S.-backed fascist military dictatorship. Once in power, his party’s innovative social programs lifted tens of millions out of poverty and strengthened his support base among Brazil’s working class.
It is his international moves, however, that has led to so much outrage in Washington. Lula has regularly attempted to block or at least refused to fully support U.S. imperial ambitions in the region. But it is Brazil’s leadership of the BRICS economic bloc and its increasing cooperation with Russia and China (the “R” and “C” of the BRICS acronym) that is perhaps the key reason why Trump wants him gone.
In recent years, BRICS has moved from a nondescript economic alliance to one threatening U.S. hegemony throughout the world, principally through their contestation of the U.S. dollar as the world’s dominant reserve currency – a position that gives Washington extraordinary power and influence over global economics.
BRICS is at the forefront of de-dollarizing global trade. And that effort is being spearheaded by Brazil. Last year, the organization held a successful summit in Rio de Janeiro. The head of the BRICS Development Bank (now called the New Development Bank or NDB) is Dilma Rousseff, a key Lula ally and former president of Brazil herself. Focusing on funding large development projects in poorer countries, the NDB could become a serious challenger to the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. “Every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar,” Lula said in a speech at the NDB in Shanghai, “Why can’t we do trade based on our own currencies? Who was it that decided that the dollar was the currency after the disappearance of the gold standard?” he added.
“The president is pissed every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarization effort” Trump advisor Steve Bannon revealed. Trump has stated that BRICS could “destroy the dollar,” and, if they are successful in doing so, it would be “like losing a war, a major world war; we would not be the same country any longer.”
Trump implemented extra tariffs on BRICS nations, including Brazil, stating: “They have to pay 10% if they’re in BRICS. Because BRICS was set up to hurt us. BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar, and take our dollar as the standard, take it off as the standard.” “The dollar is king, and we’re going to keep it that way,” he concluded.
When asked why is Trump so involved in the upcoming elections in Brazil, Mier responded:
Hegemony. Brazil is arguably the last sovereign left of center government in South America, but it also has the second-largest economy after the U.S. in the Americas and is home to roughly half of the population of Latin America. In accordance with Trump’s new Monroe doctrine, the US wants a completely subordinate Brazil, free of Chinese influence.
Sure enough, on Tuesday, the State Department released a statement reading: “The Monroe Doctrine has shaped U.S. foreign policy for over two centuries. American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
First declared in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine (and subsequent corollaries) suggest that the entirety of the Americas belong to the United States alone, that no other foreign powers are welcome in the region, and that the United States can intervene militarily in any country in the hemisphere if and when it wants.
Generations of academics, politicians, and pundits have downplayed the doctrine, attacking scholars who claim that this policy is still active as misguided or conspiracy theorists. But the Trump administration, with its ongoing tendency to say the quiet part out loud, has openly embraced the Monroe Doctrine and declared it official U.S. government policy.
Mier also explained what he saw as Washington’s ultimate goal for Brazil:
Looking at the U.S. as an integral state and taking into consideration the history of the U.S. State Department as an agent of U.S. corporate interests, it is clear that the Silicon Valley tech fascists want chaos. These powerful transnational actors want a completely unregulated environment for crypto, social media brainwashing operations, A.I. and online betting.
“This is what they are getting right now in El Salvador and Argentina,” he concluded, “and they want it in Brazil,” too.
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