Fighting transnational criminal factions is the declared top priority of Donald Trump's administration for the Western Hemisphere, a front on which Washington has joined forces with conservative-led governments in Latin America. It is exactly that cooperation, though, that has hit its worst stretch between the United States and Brazil, the hemisphere's two most populous nations. A report by The New York Times published on Saturday (12), relayed in Brazil by G1 and InfoMoney, shows that the diplomatic rift has now reached joint police and tax-enforcement work.
According to one American and three senior Brazilian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the US State Department is holding visas for two agents of Brazil's Federal Police, the country's main federal investigative force, who were assigned to posts in Miami and New York. There they were to work with Homeland Security Investigations, a federal criminal agency, among others. The officers had been vetted and approved by both governments early this year and were due to take up their posts last month. In response, Brazil blocked the visa of a US security official who was to be posted there. Washington also declined, citing a busy schedule, a visit to the American capital by nearly a dozen agents from Brazil's Federal Revenue and Customs Service who investigate money laundering and arms smuggling tied to international drug factions.
For Brazil, the cost is direct. The country is a strategic route for cocaine bound for Europe and Africa, Brazilian factions use the US banking system to launder money and buy guns smuggled out of American states, as shown by the recent Federal Police arrest of two men with weapon parts sent from Florida. According to the Times, in May Washington designated Brazil's two largest criminal factions as terrorist organizations, after pressure from allies of Jair Bolsonaro, and the move leaked secret Federal Police investigations and forced hasty arrests. That same month, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva personally handed Trump, at the White House, a proposal for joint action against the factions centered on blocking guns. The US government never replied to the plan.
How the standoff began
The escalation began in April, when the Trump administration expelled Federal Police delegate Marcelo Ivo de Carvalho from the United States, accusing him of a political witch hunt for his role in the arrest of a former Brazilian intelligence chief in the investigation of the January 8, 2023 coup attempt. Brazil responded by revoking the credentials of a US security agent in Brasília. According to the paper, the strain deepened amid attempts by the US government to interfere in Brazilian domestic affairs and an apparent willingness in Washington to back Flávio Bolsonaro, the right-wing candidate challenging the leftist incumbent Lula in October's presidential election.
The police partnership between the two countries goes back decades: joint investigations have dismantled international corruption schemes, piracy networks and human trafficking rings, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has kept an attaché in Brazil for more than twenty years. Spot technical cooperation still works, such as a cross-alert system on suspicious containers that has helped intercept smuggled weapons. But Brazil has been left out of new US-led regional security initiatives, such as the "Shield of the Americas" alliance and meetings at the UN.
The greater damage, analysts say, is to trust. "The perception is that US security policy toward Brazil has been contaminated by politics. This has not led to a definitive rupture, but it has introduced new complexities into the relationship and filled it with distrust," said Robert Muggah, director of research at the Igarapé Institute. For Edvandir Felix de Paiva, president of the association of Federal Police delegates, the logic is simple: "today, criminal factions do not recognize borders; that is why we need to work together".
What the governments say
Asked about the visas, the State Department declined to comment on details but said in a statement that the Trump administration protects "the nation and its citizens by maintaining the highest standards of national security and public safety" in its visa process, and will keep working with Brazil on "long-standing shared interests". US Customs and Border Protection said it remains committed to dialogue with Brazilian authorities on security and the fight against transnational crime. Brazil's Federal Police and the foreign ministry, known as Itamaraty, did not comment; the ministry that oversees the Federal Revenue Service said both countries keep a dialogue on exchanging best practices. For Jimmy Story, a former US ambassador cited by the paper, this style of diplomacy produces a counterproductive distance between the two countries.