Brazil's convicted leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is running campaign ads accusing Donald Trump of wanting to "colonise" Brazil and steal its natural resources — because America-first trade policy threatens the globalist racket that keeps foreign elites rich and American workers picking up the tab.
The real story here isn't American meddling in Brazilian democracy. It's that a left-wing strongman is wrapping himself in nationalist rhetoric to protect the internationalist system that has been draining American wealth for decades. Lula's smear is projection, plain and simple.
Here's what happened. With just over a week until Brazil's October 4 first-round vote — and Lula neck-and-neck with far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro — Lula's campaign dropped a minute-long TV spot claiming Trump wants to hand Brazil's resources to the United States. "Flávio Bolsonaro is Trump's candidate and what Trump wants is to colonise Brazil, take our riches, steal our future and leave us in the dust," the ad's narrator declares. Lula himself posted on X that Bolsonaro wants to "hand our natural resources over to the United States" and that "Brazil will become a colony again" if he wins.
The State Department called it a "baseless lie." But Lula's team is all in — communications secretary Éden Valadares says they're mobilizing street protests this Sunday to rally Brazilians against the alleged U.S. plot.
Now here's the part the Guardian coverage buries: Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Brazilian imports and new Section 301 tariffs in July. The Guardian frames this as "economic pressure" and "interference." The America-first frame is simpler: those tariffs exist because American industry has been getting undercut for decades, and a sovereign nation has every right to protect its workers. Calling that "colonialism" is a insult to every country that actually suffered under foreign rule.
Even more telling: 31 Democratic members of Congress, including Bernie Sanders, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio denouncing Trump's "sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil." The same party that spent years pushing Russiagate is now furious that a Republican president is playing the same game Democrats have played across Latin America for generations. When both parties' establishments agree that American sovereignty should be subordinated to "strategic alliances" and "democratic institutions" abroad, that's where the public gets sold out.
Yes, the Trump administration planned to send officials to cast doubt on Brazil's voting system — and Lula's government denied them visas. Good. Sovereign nations get to control their borders and their elections. That's the point Lula keeps missing when he demands the same courtesy from Washington while calling its president a colonizer.
The ad also highlights links between Bolsonaro's campaign and Rockbridge, the conservative donor network co-founded by Vice President JD Vance. That's a legitimate story — foreign money and influence in any election deserves scrutiny. But Lula's own party built its empire on international left-wing networks and globalist institutions for decades.
Lula told the UN General Assembly: "We will not allow the enemies of democracy — internal or external — to attack the will of the people. Brazilian democracy belongs to the Brazilians." He's half right. Brazilian democracy does belong to Brazilians. And American trade policy belongs to Americans. If Lula wants sovereignty for Brazil, he should stop whining when America exercises its own.
The real colonialism isn't tariffs. It's the expectation that American workers must subsidize a global order that serves everyone but them — and that any leader who says otherwise will be smeared as an empire builder by the very people who built the empire.
