The American president Donald Trump spoke this Sunday about the presidential runoff in Brazil with a statement that did not commit to either of the candidates: "I don't want to get into that issue, but we are watching," he declared before reporters at the White House.
The statement was made on the same day when more than 158 million voters in Brazil were called to decide between the incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party, in a runoff that polls described as a technical tie.
The latest measurements from Datafolha and Quaest before the vote showed Flávio Bolsonaro with 51% compared to 49% for Lula, with a margin of error of two percentage points.
Although Trump did not formally endorse any candidate this Sunday, his attention to the Brazilian electoral process has been evident for weeks.
At the beginning of October, the American president stated that he was following the elections "very closely" and described them as "very important."
After the first round on October 4, in which Flávio Bolsonaro received 47.06% of the votes compared to Lula's 45.13% — a difference of approximately 2.3 million votes — Trump described the outcome as a "great victory" for the Bolsonaro candidate and predicted that the runoff would be "very competitive."
The next day, he posted on Truth Social praising the speed of the Brazilian electronic voting system— in use since the 1990s — and called the electoral system of his own country "corrupt."
The connection between Trump and bolsonarism has concrete precedents: Flávio Bolsonaro visited the White House and met with Trump on May 26, 2026, an unusual gesture for a foreign senator without the position of head of state, and promised to integrate Brazil into the so-called "Shield of the Americas" if he won the presidency.
Flávio is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced in September 2025 to 27 years and three months in prison by the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil for leading an attempted coup after losing the 2022 elections to Lula.
The relationship between Washington and Brasília is experiencing its worst moment in years.
In July 2026, the U.S. imposed tariffs of 25% on Brazilian products under Section 301 of the Trade Act, along with an additional levy of 12.5% for alleged deficiencies in the control of forced labor, raising the total tariff burden to 37.5%.
Lula's government described the measure as a "regrettable milestone," and the president himself warned Trump not to intervene in the electoral process: "The citizens chose Trump to govern the United States, not to impose his will in Brazil," he stated.
One day before the runoff, Reuters reported that current and former U.S. officials described a campaign within the State Department to favor the Bolsonaro clan through diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions, although Washington denied any attempts at electoral interference.
At the time of closing the consulted sources, the official result of the runoff had not yet been declared.
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