Two days before Brazil votes in the first round of its presidential election, a former White House aide has raised the alarm about Washington's role in the race. Nick Zimmerman, who served as director for Brazil and the Southern Cone at the National Security Council under Barack Obama, said there are "great chances" that President Donald Trump will not recognize the result if Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins by a narrow margin. The warning came in an interview with the Brazilian podcast A Máquina, published by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo on Saturday (Oct. 3).
Zimmerman, now a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, said Trump's level of interference in the Brazilian election has no precedent in American history. In the post-Cold War era, he recalled, Washington frowned upon presidents endorsing political candidates abroad, on the grounds that defending free and fair elections was itself a core US interest. He pointed to two recent precedents under Trump: in Argentina, a $20 billion promise on the eve of legislative elections; in Honduras, a threat to cut all foreign aid if his preferred presidential candidate lost.
Two scenarios for Brazil
For Brazil, Zimmerman outlines two post-election scenarios. If Lula wins, Trump could demand concessions or impose sanctions in exchange for recognizing the vote count. If Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and Lula's main rival, wins, Washington could demand limits on China's access to Brazilian infrastructure and critical minerals. "I see last year's tariff blitz, the Magnitsky Act sanctions against [Supreme Court Justice] Alexandre de Moraes and the designation of the CV and the PCC as terrorist organizations as efforts to politically help the Bolsonaro family," he said, referring to Comando Vermelho and Primeiro Comando da Capital, two of Brazil's largest criminal gangs.
On Friday (Oct. 2), asked by reporters about the Brazilian election, Trump repeated that the United States is "monitoring it closely," but once again avoided saying whether he backs Flávio Bolsonaro, according to InfoMoney.
Publicly, the Brazilian government denies any concern that Washington might refuse to recognize the result, according to reporting by Mariana Sanches, Washington correspondent for the news portal g1. Behind the scenes, however, there is caution: an aide to Lula told BBC News Brasil that the abrupt closure of the US embassy and consulates in Brazil on Friday, two days before the vote, was received with concern, because it could project abroad an image that the election is not taking place in a calm environment. The Federal Police carried out search warrants related to an alleged risk to US diplomatic facilities, but said it found no elements corroborating the threat.
Recent polls point to a tight race: pollster Datafolha found Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro in a statistical tie in a potential runoff, which would keep the attention of Washington and the markets on Brazil for weeks after Sunday's (Oct. 4) first round.