According to The Guardian, the Kennedy administration in 1962 was desperate to influence Brazil’s congressional elections against its leftwing president, João Goulart, fearing a communist threat in what the US considered its backyard.

Historical Precedent and Modern Parallels

Historians reveal that the CIA and the Department of State secretly funneled millions of dollars to opposition candidates and a rightwing propaganda group, stoking unrest during the 1962 election cycle.

Chico Rubens Paiva, a political activist, whose congressman grandfather, Rubens Paiva, investigated Washington’s meddling in a 1963 parliamentary inquiry, said, “There was a very heavy-handed intervention here by the US government.”

More than six decades later, Paiva is among those fearing history is repeating itself. The 2026 presidential election will pit leftwing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, a Donald Trump ally serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a military coup.

Accusations of US Interference in the 2026 Election

Polls indicate a tight race, with Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, accused of trying to tilt the scales in Bolsonaro’s favor through economic and diplomatic pressure. US measures include imposing 25% tariffs on most Brazilian imports and designating Brazil’s two biggest crime groups, Rio’s Red Command and São Paulo’s First Command of the Capital, as foreign terrorist organizations.

Brazilian officials suspect this move is partly intended to make Lula look soft on crime and thus back Bolsonaro. In July, Lula said two Trump officials had been denied entry visas because they planned “to meddle in Brazil’s elections.” Brazilian officials believe the pair, who reportedly planned to meet Flávio Bolsonaro, aimed to cast doubt on the reliability of Brazil’s voting system – a tactic the Bolsonaros have used repeatedly.

Soon after, the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington was revoked. Celso Rocha de Barros, a political scientist and podcast pundit, expressed confusion that US interference – which he deemed the election’s most urgent issue – was not receiving more mainstream coverage.

Barros claimed, “The greatest superpower in human history is explicitly backing a candidate in our election and is strangling the Brazilian economy in order to help him [win]. We cannot pretend that this isn’t happening and treat this like a normal election … the Brazilian economy is under attack.”

Comparisons to the Cold War and Trump’s Strategy

Trump’s tactics mirror Washington’s cold war-era attempt to manipulate Brazilian politics before the 1964 coup, which ushered in two decades of authoritarian rule. During that period, the CIA helped finance the Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action, which poured money into the campaigns of hundreds of lawmakers and eight gubernatorial candidates.

Historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling noted in their book Brazil: A Biography that the objective was strategic: “to create a strong opposition in congress, block government initiatives, and prepare the way for a coup d’état.” Another US-funded group, the Research and Social Studies Institute, bankrolled anti-communist propaganda and anti-government protests to destabilize Goulart’s administration.

Brown University historian James N Green said the intention was “getting rid of Goulart and opening the door to the military coming to power.” He sees parallels between Trump’s use of tariffs to sabotage Lula’s campaign and how in the early 1960s, Washington sought to weaken Goulart by funding his opponents and cutting off loans. Then, as now, the US government was “bent on doing everything possible to weaken the government” in Brazil.

Barros, however, sees a key difference: “The 1962 campaign was done covertly, precisely because the CIA knew there would be real public anger in Brazil if people knew the US was bankrolling candidates. So they did it secretly. Today, this is being done openly – and on an incomparably larger scale.”

The Department of State rejected claims of US meddling in Brazil’s election, calling the accusations “baseless.” An official stated, “We respect the Brazilian people and whatever government that they choose freely through free and fair elections in Brazil. We’ve respected and dealt with governments from both sides of the spectrum in Brazil, and had very successful relationships with them.”

Last year, Trump was accused of meddling in the politics of neighboring Argentina after backing rightwing president Javier Milei ahead of important midterm elections. Milei recently attended Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign launch in Brazil, using his speech to denounce Lula as a “thief.”

Green believes the US pressure campaign is driven by two strategic objectives: weakening and delegitimizing Lula’s government and reducing Brazil’s ability to challenge the US economic pressure on Cuba. The second is to “neutralise” leftwing forces in Latin America more broadly, boosting the right in hopes of electing more Trump-aligned leaders.

Since 2023, a series of radical rightwing populists have won power in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Colombia. This has been dubbed Latin America’s “orange wave” in reference to Trump’s tangerine complexion.

Paiva believes US interference aims to strengthen “American dominance” in a region it views as its sphere of influence. He draws a comparison to the US-backed removal of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January, which allowed the US to install his vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, as a pliant successor. Paiva believes Bolsonaro’s election would serve a similar purpose: “putting people into power who will serve their interests.”

He fears US social media companies could further tilt the election in Bolsonaro’s favor. “Any kind of change to the algorithm has a harsh impact in the way information reaches people,” Paiva warned. He noted the shift in Silicon Valley toward Trump’s camp during his second term.

Barros is convinced the US aims to elect Flávio Bolsonaro, who he claims “will give them everything they want.” He said, “Flávio will make a rare earths deal no other president would. Flávio will let American big techs do whatever they like in Brazil. Flávio will reduce economic relations with China as much as he can.” He noted that Bolsonaro supporters at rallies carried US flags.

Barros believes the driving force behind the campaign is not Trump but Rubio, who hopes to support a possible 2028 presidential run by showing voters he has “delivered the whole of Latin America to American interests.” He concluded, “The fact is, this is an election between Lula and Marco Rubio.”