A TV ad has accused the US president of meddling in the country\u2019s upcoming election to gain control of its natural resources<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump wants to \u201ccolonize\u201d Brazil and gain control of its natural resources by interfering in the country\u2019s upcoming presidential election, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva\u2019s campaign has said.
\nMeta blocked the advertising account used by Lula\u2019s campaign on Facebook just days before the first round of the presidential election on October 4 in which left-wing incumbent Lula is seeking a fourth term against his main rival, right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. Recent polls have put the two candidates in a tight race, with a runoff scheduled for October 25 if neither wins more than half the vote.
\nIn a minute-long television advertisement broadcast on Thursday, Lula\u2019s campaign accused Trump of meddling in Brazil\u2019s election in a bid to turn the country back into a colony and seize its natural resources. The video points to US-funded political advertising targeting Brazilian voters, alleged involvement by American tech companies, and an intelligence warning that the risk of US interference had reached a \u201ccritical level.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cFlavio Bolsonaro is Trump\u2019s candidate,\u201d the narrator says. \u201cAnd what Trump wants is to colonize Brazil, to take our wealth, steal our future and leave us behind.\u201d
\nTrump fiercely backed Flavio\u2019s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, during his trial over an alleged plot to overturn his 2022 election defeat and remain in power.<\/p>\n
Risk of US interference in Brazil at \u2018critical level\u2019
\nThe ad cited a confidential assessment by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN), which was sent to the presidency, the country\u2019s electoral court, and the Justice Ministry. The document warned of escalating US pressure on Brazil and raised the risk of external influence or interference in the election to a \u201ccritical level.\u201d
\n\u201cAccording to ABIN, the pressure from the United States must increase and Trump\u2019s goal is to defeat Lula to control our natural resources,\u201d the campaign ad says.
\nLula echoed the accusation on X, stating that Bolsonaro wants to \u201chand our natural resources over to the United States.\u201d\u00a0\u201cIf it\u2019s up to him, Brazil will become a colony again,\u201d the president wrote.<\/p>\n
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US wants \u2018to colonize us again\u2019 \u2013 Lula to Latin American leaders<\/p>\n
The campaign video also suggested direct links between Bolsonaro\u2019s campaign and US political interests. \u201cAnd now we know that there\u2019s American money in Flavio\u2019s campaign,\u201d the narrator says, pointing to Rockbridge Network, a secretive US donor network co-founded in 2019 by Vice President JD Vance and investor Chris Buskirk. Reuters has described the Silicon Valley-backed organization as financing right-wing media, polling and voter-turnout operations to spread Trump\u2019s brand of nationalism, with wealthy investors including Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer among its reported backers.
\nBrazilian media reported that Pedro Sang, described as a Rockbridge organizer in Brazil, helped set up Bolsonaro\u2019s campaign headquarters in Sao Paulo and took on a leadership role there. Lula\u2019s Workers\u2019 Party asked the Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court to investigate possible foreign financing, which is prohibited under Brazilian election law. Sang denied that Rockbridge provided funding to political campaigns in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Meta blocks Lula campaign ads
\nMeta has meanwhile disabled the advertising account used by Lula\u2019s campaign on Facebook, preventing it from running new ads just days before the election. The campaign said the US tech giant gave no explanation for the move and demanded that access be restored, threatening legal action and describing the restriction as another example of alleged Big Tech interference in the vote.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe evidence of interference is all there, it keeps happening and we have already denounced it publicly,\u201d Workers\u2019 Party communications chief Eden Valadares said. Meta has not publicly explained why the account was disabled.
\nThe move follows a study published last week that found Meta approved 13 of 15 test political ads paid for through a US-based account and targeting Brazilian voters, including an AI-generated video depicting Trump urging Brazilians to vote for Bolsonaro. The researchers did not actually publish the ads, while Meta said the experiment did not reflect the scale of its efforts to protect the Brazilian election.<\/p>\n
US hits Brazil with tariffs over Big Tech
\nWashington has ramped up economic and diplomatic pressure on Brazil ahead of the vote, imposing 25% tariffs on Brazilian imports in a dispute that observers say centers on Big Tech regulation rather than trade imbalances. The US Trade Representative cited Brazil\u2019s treatment of American tech companies and court orders forcing platforms to remove political content, among other policies, to justify the tariffs.
\nWashington also revoked the Brazilian ambassador\u2019s visa in August as tensions escalated during the election campaign. Lula\u2019s government called the move politically motivated interference.<\/p>\n
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Lula has cast the pressure as a threat to Brazilian sovereignty. \u201cWe will not allow the enemies of democracy \u2013 internal or external \u2013 to attack the will of the people,\u201d he told the UN General Assembly this week. \u201cBrazilian democracy belongs to the Brazilians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela raid fuels fears of US intervention
\nThe alarm has spread beyond Lula\u2019s camp. Right-wing presidential candidate Renan Santos has also accused Trump of wanting Brazil as a \u201cvassal state,\u201d to secure favorable rare-earth contracts and said Brazil should not become a vassal of the US or China.
\nSantos pointed to the US military operation in Venezuela in January, when American forces captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and brought them to the US to face drug and weapons charges. Lula condemned the raid as the first direct US military attack on South America in more than 200 years of independence, while Santos warned: \u201cI don\u2019t want to see Latin America become an American protectorate.\u201d
\nThe State Department last month shrugged off claims that the White House was meddling in Brazil\u2019s election, declaring that \u201cany insinuation of a \u2018ploy\u2019 to undermine a democratic nation\u2019s election is a baseless lie.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A TV ad has accused the US president of meddling in the country\u2019s upcoming election to gain control of its natural resources US President Donald Trump wants to \u201ccolonize\u201d Brazil…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t