Thirty-one members of the United States Congress sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday (24) accusing Donald Trump's administration of trying to interfere in Brazil's presidential election. The document, obtained by the Brazilian news site Metrópoles, was signed by 30 members of the House of Representatives and Senator Bernie Sanders, a group the G1 news service describes as Democratic lawmakers. They demand that the State Department publicly commit to respecting Brazil's electoral process and recognizing the certified result, with answers to their questions due by October 1.
In the lawmakers' assessment, measures taken by Washington since 2025 amount to a campaign of diplomatic, economic and political pressure against Brazilian institutions. The letter cites two rounds of tariffs on Brazilian products, sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and other Brazilian officials, and the designation of the First Capital Command (PCC) and Red Command (CV) gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. The signatories note that the designation was announced two days after a May meeting between Trump and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate, in which, according to the document, Bolsonaro asked the Americans for exactly that classification.
"The actions of the Trump administration constituted an extraordinary violation of Brazil's national sovereignty and a blatant attempt to pressure Brazilian officials regarding an ongoing judicial proceeding," the letter says, in the version published by G1.
Warnings in Brasília
For Brazil, the letter arrives at a delicate moment, ten days before the first round of the election on October 4 and two days after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the United Nations General Assembly, without naming the United States, that Brazil would not accept "external interference in electoral processes". The concern already carried institutional weight in Brasília. According to the R7 news site, Brazil's intelligence agency, the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin), sent a report in late August to the presidential palace, the Justice Ministry and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), which runs Brazilian elections, warning about the "level of criticality" of possible American interference.
The Abin report, disclosed by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, helps map the interests at stake. It says the goals of Trump's second term in Latin America include reducing the influence of rival powers of the United States and denying them access to strategic assets, natural wealth and infrastructure, in favor of direct or indirect control by Washington or American private capital. For the lawmakers, the pressure has a specific target: Brazilian authorities involved in the case against former president Jair Bolsonaro before the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the country's top court. Lula's government, for its part, had proposed bilateral cooperation against transnational organized crime, proposals the letter says were ignored when the PCC and CV designations were announced.
A visa dispute
Tensions between the two countries have also played out over visas. According to the letter, Brazil's foreign ministry denied entry to two State Department officials, Riley M. Barnes and Samuel Samson, after the lawmakers received information that the delegation intended to cast doubt on the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system. In retaliation, Washington revoked the visa of Brazil's ambassador to the United States, Maria Luiza Viotti. The document also mentions statements by then White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about American "military might", which the signatories say fuel fears of extraterritorial financial sanctions or even military intervention.
In all, the letter makes seven requests of Rubio, including explaining the criteria behind the sanctions on Moraes, justifying the terrorist designations of the PCC and CV, and committing to recognize the winner of the 2026 election. As of Saturday (26), the State Department had not responded publicly. The first round goes to the polls on October 4, with Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro as the main contenders.