President Trump said Monday that Brazil’s runoff election looked “rigged” and “corrupt” after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pulled off a stunning comeback victory against opponent Flavio Bolsonaro.
“It looked like another rigged election,” Mr. Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before a campaign rally in Mississippi. “I didn’t take sides, but it was a terrible look for the world. Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me.”
“I watched the election and it looked so corrupt. So terrible,” he said.
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Mr. Trump also criticized the Brazilian Supreme Court, which issued a last-minute decision that extended voting hours in the election, which was one of the closest in the country’s history.
“I just think it had a very bad look, the election. The way it was tabulated. The extension given was very strange,” he said.
Asked if he would take any action in response, he said he got along “very well” with Mr. Lula, the incumbent, but the left-leaning Brazilian leader has clashed with the American president on key issues over the last two years.
Mr. Bolsonaro called for annulling the runoff in a bid to overturn the results, a move his father — former President Jair Bolsonaro — tried after his defeat by Mr. Lula four years ago. The older Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup after supporters stormed government buildings in a bid to overturn the results.
Mr. Lula’s opponent in this year’s election, the younger Bolsonaro, campaigned on improving relations with Mr. Trump and the U.S. if elected.
Mr. Lula took just over 51% of the vote in the weekend runoff, winning about 4 million more votes than Mr. Bolsonaro, after Mr. Bolsonaro won the first round Oct. 4 with 47% of the vote to Mr. Lula’s 45%.
The younger Mr. Bolsonaro has refused to recognize Mr. Lula’s victory publicly and is calling for the results to be annulled. He also harshly criticized the Brazilian Supreme Court for extending voting for several hours, calling it a “dirty trick.”
Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party unsucessfully challenged the presidential results in 2022, when Mr. Lula defeated Mr. Bolsonaro’s pro-Trump father. The American president has dismissed as a “witch hunt” the prosecution of the 71-year-old former leader, who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup after his loss to Mr. Lula.
Mr. Lula’s victory over Brazil’s resurgent right wing ends a conservative winning streak on the continent over the past year and a half.
Frustrated with rising violent crime and corruption, voters have handed election victories to conservative candidates in Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador and Peru.
Those fears are likely to haunt Mr. Lula’s administration as he looks to bind together an exceptionally divided country facing high consumer prices and mounting debt. Mr. Bolsonaro’s political allies from the Liberal Party also won their regional elections, which could add further strain to Mr. Lula’s agenda.
Right-wing political victories in South America have also been driven, in part, by Mr. Trump, who has offered high-profile endorsements, as well as military and economic cooperation with the U.S.
But until Mr. Trump’s comments Monday, the administration had been comparatively quiet on the Brazilian election.
Tensions between Brasília and Washington would threaten the U.S.-Brazilian partnership on critical minerals. Mr. Lula fast-tracked legislation aimed at restricting foreign influence over Brazilian rare earth minerals last month after USA Rare Earth, a mining company that the U.S. government has a 10% stake in, completed its $2.8 takeover of the Brazilian mining company Serra Verde.
Brazil produces nearly 93% of the world’s supply of niobium, a critical mineral used in everything from natural gas pipelines to cars and advanced missiles.
The Trump administration has consistently sounded the alarm over China’s dominance in the production and refining of rare earths, and how the U.S. and the Western world could be choked off from the valuable resources.
Mr. Lula could use Brazil’s heavy rare earth deposits, growing infrastructure and developing relationship with China to leverage an improved trade deal with the U.S.
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