President Trump seems to have it in for Latin America. Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has Washington pursued a policy of such hostility toward its southern neighbors. Yet one country has emerged as a special target of Mr. Trump’s ire: Brazil. In July, he threatened 50 percent tariffs unless the authorities there halted the prosecution of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, accused of plotting against democracy after his 2022 defeat, and overturned a Supreme Court ruling on social media content.
The country’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, flatly refused. Instead, full of righteous indignation, he seized the nationalist mantle and cast himself as the defender of Brazilian sovereignty against Washington’s heavy hand. “At no point,” he told The Times, “will Brazil negotiate as if it were a small country up against a big country.” The eye-watering tariffs were duly imposed, though some exemptions softened the blow. Yet Mr. Lula’s refusal to be bullied and insistence that Brazil play an independent role on the world stage has brought him a bump in support at home.
He’s going to need it. Next year, at age 80, he will seek an unprecedented fourth term when Brazilians go to the polls. The election will not merely decide the fate of the government or Mr. Lula’s legacy. It will determine whether Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, will join the authoritarian chorus reverberating across the Western Hemisphere. For Mr. Lula and his country, the stakes could not be higher. The Brazilian president may have faced down Mr. Trump, but his biggest challenge is still to come.
For much of his third term Mr. Lula has struggled with middling poll numbers. Despite low unemployment, inflation has been a nagging issue. There has also been a feeling among a considerable slice of the electorate that his foreign policy priorities, such as an early attempt to broker a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, as well as his trenchant criticism of the Israeli government, were quixotic and unproductive.
But things are looking up. A majority approve of his conduct on the world stage, and many back his handling of the spat with Mr. Trump. Recent polls also show him beating every tested matchup for 2026, including the São Paulo governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a Bolsonarist die-hard seen as Mr. Lula’s most formidable challenger. The public mood, too, has shifted: More Brazilians say they fear a comeback for Mr. Bolsonaro than worry about Mr. Lula staying in power.
The president is now less a fading incumbent than a resilient front-runner. Improving consumer confidence explains some of it, but the broader political picture is just as important. With Mr. Bolsonaro barred from office until 2030, his son relocated to the United States to lobby the White House full-time. His efforts appear to have paid off. But the Trump administration’s attempt to cow Brazil into dropping charges that may imminently lead to a lengthy prison sentence for Mr. Bolsonaro has backfired. Despite the Bolsonaro family’s endeavors to blame Mr. Lula, more Brazilians fault them for Mr. Trump’s costly tariffs.
The wind may be at Mr. Lula’s back, but considerable challenges remain. For one, the coalition that led him back to office three years ago is extremely fragile. His party alone cannot deliver a majority in today’s fragmented political system. Victory next year will require stitching together a broad alliance ranging from the center left to pragmatic conservatives, the same unwieldy bloc that sustained his comeback in 2022. That means tending constantly to centrist governors, congressional leaders and business groups, whom the current crop of would-be opposition candidates are also courting. Can Mr. Lula convince centrists that democracy is on the ballot even if Mr. Bolsonaro is not?
It remains to be seen, too, how Mr. Trump’s commercial assault on Brazil will play out. Thanks to a concerted effort to diversify its trading partners, Brazil is much less reliant on the U.S. market than it once was. Still, there is a fine line between a principled defense of one’s national interests and political posturing in the face of calamity. Mr. Lula insists that he is perfectly willing to speak with Mr. Trump and has introduced a contingency plan to help with the fallout. For the moment, that is going over well enough. But if the tariffs prove lasting and more painful than expected, his unflinching approach may grate.
The right, meanwhile, is far from finished. Mr. Bolsonaro may be hobbled by legal troubles, but Bolsonarismo — a noxious blend of conspiracy, resentment, religious fervor and nostalgia for military order — is not so easily contained. While 39 percent of voters in a recent poll identified with Mr. Lula’s party, 37 percent favored Mr. Bolsonaro. The most credible heir remains the São Paulo governor Mr. de Freitas, a technocrat who owes his political career to the former president. Polling competitively, he must decide whether to tack toward the center in next year’s contest or pledge himself ever more faithfully to Mr. Bolsonaro’s reactionary movement.
If that strategic dilemma will define the opposition campaign, Mr. Lula’s will depend on whether he can keep the economy steady enough to blunt attacks on his management and frame the election as a referendum on democracy itself. He has already begun to do so, presenting himself as the bulwark against foreign interference and authoritarian relapse. If he can make 2026 about whether Brazil continues as an independent, pluralist society or veers back toward a pattern of democratic erosion that defers to the interests of the United States, he stands a decent chance.
Mr. Lula has always thrived on long odds. He rose from poverty to the presidency, returned from prison to defeat an incumbent for the first time in Brazil’s post-dictatorship history and has outlasted every obituary written for his political career. Yet the election ahead may be his greatest trial yet. Mr. Trump and his allies will surely seek to influence the race in some way, putting the Brazilian incumbent’s famous campaign skills to the test.
Mr. Lula is undoubtedly a legendary figure of the country’s past. Now he must convince voters that he can lead it into the future, too.
Andre Pagliarini (@apagliar) is an assistant professor of history and international studies at Louisiana State University, a fellow at the Washington Brazil Office and a nonresident expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Lula: A People’s President and the Fight for Brazil’s Future.”
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