President Donald Trump's administration put in writing a demand that Brazil hold "free and fair" presidential elections in 2026 and refrain from detaining, arresting or "arbitrarily" restricting the participation of "political dissidents" in the race. The clause was part of a document with 21 demands handed to Brazilian negotiators in October 2025, during the secret talks that followed the 50% tariff the US imposed on Brazilian goods. The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo revealed the demand on Thursday (17), and sources at Itamaraty, Brazil's foreign ministry, confirmed it to TV Globo.
According to Estadão, the text was presented on October 16, 2025 to a Brazilian mission sent to Washington and led by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. It was the first US proposal for an agreement after the tariff announcement in July 2025, and both governments had kept its contents secret until now. At least two members of the delegation received the document by email, for internal discussion before any treatment at ministerial level. The electoral clause read:
"Brazil commits to holding free and fair presidential elections in 2026 and will not detain, arrest or otherwise arbitrarily limit the participation of political dissidents in the electoral process."
For members of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government heard by Estadão, the demand targeted former president Jair Bolsonaro, convicted of attempted coup plotting in 2025 and barred from this year's race, in which the Brazilian right runs with his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Itamaraty sources told news site g1 that Brazil rejected the proposal because the text contained "absurdities". The demand never made it onto the agenda of the bilateral dialogue and circulated only at technical level: it never reached Vieira, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, or Presidents Trump and Lula, according to the same sources.
The revelation lands less than three weeks before the first round, with Brazil's top electoral court, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), already having barred more than 1,200 candidacies in these elections, and it revives the debate over foreign interference. The Lula government had already accused Washington of interference over the tariff package, the designation of the PCC and Comando Vermelho criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, sanctions on Brazilian officials and the revocation of diplomatic visas, according to Estadão.
Mixed signals from Washington
The State Department and the Office of the United States Trade Representative did not respond to Estadão, and the US government had made no public comment as of g1's last update. Last month, a senior State Department official said, on condition of anonymity, that the US would respect the result at the polls as long as Brazil promoted a "free and fair" contest. Trump's nominee for ambassador in Brasília, Daniel Perez, whose name still awaits Lula's approval, denied any intention to meddle in the race. "As for the elections in Brazil, that is for Brazilians to decide, and whoever they choose as winner will be the person I will work with," he told a Florida TV station.
Lula and Trump did meet at the White House in May of this year, according to g1. The electoral clause, however, never became part of what the two governments negotiated: for Itamaraty, the matter ended when the document was dismissed as absurd.