Trump calls Brazil ‘politically difficult’; Lula says he should learn about ‘civilized elections’ — MercoPress

Trump calls Brazil ‘politically difficult’; Lula says he should learn about ‘civilized elections’

“I think Trump knows little about Brazil; if he knows it, it is through his relationship with the Bolsonaro family,” Lula said

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday asked his US counterpart, Donald Trump, not to interfere in Brazil’s elections, a matter he stressed is exclusive to Brazil, just as his country does not seek to meddle in the electoral processes of the United States. The demand was a response to remarks Trump had made about Brazil hours earlier.

Lula spoke at a press conference in Geneva after taking part as a guest in the G7 summit, which concluded on Wednesday in the nearby French town of Évian. There, Trump had said Brazil is a “politically difficult” country that “plays quite hard” —though he warned that “no one plays harder than the United States”— and described the conviction of former deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro as “unpleasant.” “They detained someone who is running for election; he was doing well in the polls, and they detained him for making statements in Texas,” the US president said.

Trump’s description appeared to confuse Eduardo Bolsonaro —convicted on Tuesday, a Texas resident who is not running for any office— with his brother, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who is indeed a candidate in Brazil’s October elections. The two brothers met with Trump at the White House last month. Eduardo, moreover, was not detained but convicted in absentia.

On Tuesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced Eduardo Bolsonaro to four years and two months in prison for coercing the justice system through his lobbying of the US government to impose sanctions against Brazil. The conviction entails his political disqualification for eight years. His father, right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced in September to 27 years for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula.

“I think Trump knows little about Brazil; if he knows it, it is through his relationship with the Bolsonaro family,” Lula said, adding that he wished for “the same respect for Brazil that I have for the United States.” The Brazilian president defended his country’s electronic-ballot system, which allows results —presidential, state and lower levels— to be known in about two hours, and held that the United States could learn to hold “calmer, lighter and less problematic” elections. “If anyone has to learn about civilized elections, it is Trump,” he added.

Asked about his encounter with Trump at the summit, Lula described it as brief and said he did not request a bilateral meeting because the two countries “are in [tariff] negotiations.” Since, in his view, “Trump talks a lot and listens little,” he chose to hand him a folder with documentation on Brazil’s work against organized crime and on rare earths, the minerals strategic for the technology industry.

The exchange comes at a moment of tension between Washington and Brasília. Trump’s government last year imposed tariffs on Brazilian goods —later partly reduced— and sanctioned Supreme Court justices who tried Jair Bolsonaro, a process Trump called a “witch hunt.” In October, Brazil will hold presidential elections in which Lula would seek a fourth term and in which Senator Flávio Bolsonaro figures as one of his main rivals.

In his initial remarks, Lula said Brazil does not want a “cold war” between the United States and China and considered that resolving disagreements through negotiation is best for everyone. He recalled that US companies have not taken part in tenders in Brazil for a long time, so —he said— Washington cannot complain that China is occupying spaces “that were empty,” amid Brasília’s growing rapprochement with Beijing.