The president Lula (PT) used the trip to Europe that ended this Tuesday (21) to make a series of counterpoints to the president of the United States, donald trump. The sequence of statements intensifies antagonism with the American that, in 2025, helped to strengthen the PT member in popularity polls and harmed the Bolsonaro family.
In his public speeches, the Brazilian president criticized Trump for the war in Iran, stated that no president has the right to intervene in another country and mocked a desire expressed by the American: to win the Prize Nobel of Peace. He also spoke of adopting reciprocity against the United States because of a Brazilian federal police officer expelled from the country.
Lula had a breather in his popular assessment in the current term when he reacted to tariffs imposed by Trump to Brazilian products sold to the USA and resorted to a discourse of national sovereignty. The surcharge was articulated by former deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro as a way of pressuring against the trial of his father for an attempted coup d’état. The former president Jair Bolsonarohowever, ended up being convicted by the STF (Supreme Federal Court) anyway.
This climate has cooled, however, and currently 40% consider the government to be bad or terrible, compared to 29% who classify it as excellent or good and another 29% who understand that the work done is regular. The difficulties in evaluating the president and the government are attributed to the inflationfamily debt and scandals such as the Master Bank and the INSS (National Social Security Institute).
One of the PT member’s strategies to regain popularity is to counterpoint the senator Flavio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), with whom he is tied in terms of voting intentions, in terms of relations with the United States. The intention is to show the main opposition candidate as someone subservient to the interests of the American president.
PT members often remember the occasion when an American flag was extended into the crowd during a Bolsonaro demonstration on Avenida Paulista, last year.
Lula has already said that Trump’s performance in the Brazilian elections It would probably help your campaign for another term. Last week, still in Brazil, he was asked in an interview if he feared US intervention in the Brazilian election and he replied: “I’m not afraid. I think he (Trump) would help me a lot if he did that.”
The speech occurred after the Republican supported Viktor Orbánwho was in power in Hungary 16 years ago, and seeing the ally be defeated.
Lula traveled to Europe last week, paid visits to foreign governments and met with businesspeople. The Brazilian went to Spain and Germany and ended the trip this Tuesday with a visit to Portugal.
He took advantage of several public speeches to foreign authorities and press to criticize Trump for the “irresponsible war” against Iran. “We cannot get up every morning and go to sleep every night with a tweet from a President of the Republic threatening the world, waging war”, he stated at the forum for the defense of democracy, in Barcelona.
Lula also attributed the rise in prices worldwide to the consequences of military operations by Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Trump invades Iran and increases beans in Brazil, increases corn in Mexico, increases gasoline in another country. In other words, is it the poor who will pay for irresponsibility for wars that no one wants?”, he said.
At the 1st Meeting of the Global Progressive Mobilization, Lula stated that “no one will beat me with a lie” when rebutting one of Trump’s arguments for taxing Brazilian products, stating that there was a trade deficit for the USA – which, however, had a surplus of US$410 billion in the trade balance with Brazil in 15 years.
“I don’t have the wealth he has, I don’t have the technology he has. And I don’t have the ship he has either. I don’t want war. The only thing I want is to tell him that even though he’s poor, there’s one thing we have to have, which is character, honesty and decency, so we can respect everyone’s rights”, he stated.
Lula also mocked Trump’s desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, honor received by the former president from the United States Barack Obama in 2009. “What we see every single day are statements, which I don’t know if they are a joke or not, President Trump saying that he has already ended eight wars and that he has not yet won the Nobel Peace Prize. So it is important that we give President Trump a Nobel Prize soon so that there will be no more wars. Then the world will live in peace, peacefully”, he ironized.
The relationship between the two countries worsened at the end of Lula’s international itinerary, with the expulsion of the PF delegate (Federal Police) Marcelo Ivo de Carvalho, who worked as the institution’s attaché in Miami and was involved in the action that led to the arrest of the former deputy for PL-RJ Alexandre Ramagemlast week by ICE, the US immigration agency.
Sentenced by the STF to 16 years, one month and 15 days in prison for participating in the coup plot, Ramagem is considered a fugitive in Brazil and lost his mandate as federal deputy, but was released by ICE two days after his arrest on Wednesday (15).
Through social media, the Trump administration stated on Monday (20) that a Brazilian official had acted to manipulate the immigration system and “circumvent both formal extradition requests and prolong political witch hunts in” American territory, which led the government to request that he leave the United States.
In Germany, Lula responded that he still did not have precise information about what had happened, but that could take action against American police officers if any type of abuse against Marcelo Ivo by the American authorities is proven. “If there was abuse by the American authorities towards our police officer, we will do reciprocity with theirs in Brazil”, he declared.
