Presidential candidate Renan Santos, of the Missão party, said on Wednesday (26) that Brazil should develop nuclear weapons and stated that he will not comply with court rulings he considers illegal. He spoke in an interview with TV Globo conducted by journalists Renata Vasconcellos and César Tralli, part of the network's series of interviews with the candidates in the 2026 presidential race.
Atomic bomb and leaving the NPT
Asked about earlier statements in favor of an atomic bomb, Santos stood by his position. "If Brazil wants to be one of the five biggest nations in the world, fit to sit at the table with the United States, India, Russia and China, it will need sovereignty, sovereignty over its own territory, military sovereignty, and it will have to discuss having atomic bombs," he said, according to G1.
The candidate acknowledged that Brazil has no conditions to produce a nuclear weapon in the next ten years and defended pulling the country out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), citing North Korea, the only country to have left the treaty. "As much as it is a regime I consider oppressive and do not respect, at least it is respected internationally," he said. The proposal collides with Brazilian law: as Folha de S.Paulo points out, Brazil has been an NPT signatory since 1998 and the Constitution states that nuclear activity on national territory "will only be admitted for peaceful purposes."
Supreme Court, pensions and public security
On the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Brazil's top court, Santos said he does not intend to disrespect all of its rulings. "It is not that I said I would go around disrespecting every STF decision, that is absurd," he said, according to InfoMoney. He kept, however, his defense of disobeying rulings he deems illegal.
"Any citizen, faced with an illegal ruling, can refuse to comply. In fact, he has a duty not to comply. An illegal ruling is not to be obeyed. If an illegal ruling comes along that puts people at very great risk, you cannot comply with it."
On the economy, the candidate promised a new pension reform. "I am not an election fraudster like other candidates who will come here and say it is not needed. We will need another pension reform. It will go broke in three years," he said. He also confirmed his pledge to cut R$ 1 trillion in public spending to stabilize the debt trajectory and defended unlinking the constitutionally mandated spending floors for health and education.
On public security, Santos reaffirmed his plan to retake, within one year in office, all territories controlled by criminal factions and promised to invest R$ 6 billion in building prisons. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the candidate cited the security model of El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, as inspiration and said Brazil is fighting a "unilaterally declared war" against organized crime.
TV Globo's interview series with the presidential candidates runs through Friday (29), when Vasconcellos and Tralli will question the remaining contenders.