More than 150 million Brazilians voted Sunday in a pivotal presidential election for Latin America’s largest economy, after a campaign dominated by tensions between Brasília and Washington.
Brazil’s attorney general last week accused the US of undermining Brazilian democracy — a central theme for incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who holds a razor-thin polling lead over Flávio Bolsonaro.
The right-wing challenger has vowed to join Washington’s “militaristic anti-crime initiatives” across Latin America, Foreign Policy wrote, a central part of the White House’s “Donroe Doctrine” for exerting influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Despite Brazil’s immense resources, its “autonomy to act is at risk,” an expert argued in Foreign Affairs, with “major powers… increasingly able to dictate their terms of engagement with Brazil.”