President Trump is trying to help a right-wing ally in Brazil — again.
Mr. Trump, eager to save the former right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro from jail last year, imposed hefty tariffs on the country and sanctions on a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who investigated Mr. Bolsonaro. He failed, and Mr. Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup after losing the last election.
Now the Trump administration’s top Brazil envoy is reviving fears that Washington is not done. The envoy, Darren Beattie, wanted to meet Mr. Bolsonaro’s oldest son and political successor and visit the former president in prison. The move provoked fierce backlash in Brazil, which accused the Trump administration of trying to interfere in its domestic affairs just months before the next high-stakes presidential election.
Mr. Beattie, who was fired from the first Trump administration for attending a meeting of white supremacists and has criticized Brazil’s efforts to reign in online disinformation, recently became the State Department’s new senior adviser on Brazil policy. He was supposed to make his first official visit to Brazil next week.
But after Brazilian officials learned that Mr. Beattie planned to meet right-wing allies without scheduling any diplomatic meetings with the country’s leftist government, they derailed the U.S. official’s plans.
The Supreme Court on Thursday night ruled that Mr. Beattie could not visit the country’s imprisoned former leader. And on Friday, the nation’s foreign ministry revoked Mr. Beattie’s visa, saying it was obtained under false pretenses. A ministry spokesman accused Mr. Beattie of “intentionally misrepresenting a material fact or committing fraud.” The visa ban is permanent, but Mr. Beattie could ask for a waiver.
A State Department spokesperson said Mr. Beattie “will soon travel to Brazil and advance the America First foreign policy agenda,” but did not answer questions about the trip’s agenda or Brazil’s concerns about American interference.
With months to go before a vote likely to once again pit President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, against Mr. Bolsonaro’s movement, many in Brazil saw Mr. Beattie’s agenda as a clear bid to prop up a right-wing challenger in Latin America’s largest democracy.
The appointment of Mr. Beattie, a MAGA loyalist who has tried to bolster a transnational right-wing movement, also laid bare efforts by the Trump administration to push one of Latin America’s few remaining leftist countries to the right as the American president seeks to tighten his grip on the Western Hemisphere.
It is too early to tell what, if any, impact Mr. Beattie’s appointment and right-wing support may have on Brazil’s highly unpredictable presidential election. Until recently, Mr. Lula led early polls by a wide margin, but that lead has narrowed and he is now practically tied with Flávio Bolsonaro.
But, the mere possibility of an American endorsement of Flávio Bolsonaro, a Brazilian senator, appeared to help galvanize a right-wing movement that had grown subdued after the elder Bolsonaro was convicted of overseeing a failed plan to stage a coup when he lost the 2022 election to Mr. Lula.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, another of the former president’s sons, rejected suggestions of U.S. intervention, claiming American oversight would only ensure conservative voices are not unfairly censored during the election.
“Let’s drop this talk of American intervention,” said Eduardo Bolsonaro, who has been living in the United States while lobbying the White House to help his father’s movement.
Like Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters, Mr. Beattie has sharply criticized Brazil’s Supreme Court for ordering social media platforms to remove content deemed hateful or threatening to democracy, casting such measures as an assault on free speech.
In the past, Mr. Beattie’s own views have landed him in trouble. During the first Trump administration, he was fired from a job as a speechwriter after speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists. He has made social media posts on white grievances, including one saying “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”
Now, Mr. Beattie’s first attempted visit to Brazil threatens to cause a new diplomatic rift between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest nations, which have only recently begun to repair relations.
Washington requested a visa for Mr. Beattie last week, saying he would attend a U.S.-sponsored conference on critical minerals and meet with Brazilian authorities, according to a top Brazilian official who spoke anonymously to discuss a confidential situation.
Then, on March 10, a lawyer for Mr. Bolsonaro asked a court to allow Mr. Beattie to meet Mr. Bolsonaro in prison outside official visiting hours, citing the American official’s busy diplomatic agenda.
Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who oversaw Mr. Bolsonaro’s case, initially authorized the visit, but only during normal visiting hours. When Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer insisted on a special time, the justice asked for details about Mr. Beattie’s diplomatic commitments. At that point, the Brazilian official said, there were none.
The U.S. embassy in Brazil eventually sent the foreign ministry a last-minute, informal request for meetings, according to a court document reviewed by The New York Times.
Changing course, Justice Moraes barred the prison visit. In a ruling on Thursday night, he suggested that American officials misrepresented the motive of Mr. Beattie’s diplomatic trip in his visa request.
The country’s foreign ministry also raised concerns about Mr. Beattie’s attempt to visit Mr. Bolsonaro ahead of an election, saying it “may constitute undue interference” in Brazil’s domestic affairs. Then it decided to revoke his visa altogether.
Mr. Lula said Mr. Beattie’s visa would only be reinstated when his own health minister was allowed back in the United States. That official’s visa was revoked last year, as part of the diplomatic spat between the two nations, sparked by Mr. Trump’s attempts to pressure Brazil to drop the criminal case against Mr. Bolsonaro.
The new crisis now threatens a fragile diplomatic truce between the United States and Brazil, forged recently after months of tensions. Mr. Trump and Mr. Lula had planned to meet in Washington this month to discuss trade, critical minerals and organized crime, though the visit was postponed because of the conflict in Iran and a new date has not been set.
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington and Jack Nicas from Mexico City. Lis Moriconi contributed research.
Ana Ionova is a contributor to The Times based in Rio de Janeiro, covering Brazil and neighboring countries.
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