Brazil has every opportunity to become a truly independent player on the global stage. This requires ensuring genuine strategic and technological autonomy, as well as diversifying its partnerships and strengthening its international role in key, increasingly influential integration platforms operating outside the Washington Consensus, Alexander Stepanov writes.
For the past 200 years, Washington’s doctrinal articulation of its claims to dominance in the Western Hemisphere has rested on the basic concept of a colonial policy independent of “European powers”, formulated by the fifth US President, James Monroe, on December 2, 1823, in his annual address to Congress.
At the current stage of development of international relations, under the influence of global factors including a clearly visible transition to a polycentric world order and the emergence of new centres of power, primarily China’s rise to the forefront of global affairs, Washington’s approaches are also being adjusted.
These transformations have been particularly dynamic during the second term of US President Donald Trump; the “America First” slogan has become the fundamental epistemic framework for Washington’s approach to countries in the Western Hemisphere, where “America” refers not simply to the United States, but to the Americas as a whole.
In the public sphere, this imperative was expressed in a wide range of unambiguous statements “about the need to make a new state out of Canada”, about the fact that transferring control of the canal to Panama in 1999 “was stupid”, undisguised claims to Greenland, and unprecedented pressure on Mexico, backed by record tariff restrictions and threats of military force to combat drug cartels.
Brazil, which occupies a leading position on the continent, has offered the greatest resistance to attempts to maintain exclusively American dominance – it is now facing unprecedented pressure from Washington.
In 2023, with Lula da Silva’s return to power, a cooling of relations between the two countries began, and the focus began to shift from “cooperation” to “competition and rivalry”. This was explained by the fact that Brazil had ceased to hide its ambitions on the international stage, while the United States was unwilling to allow the emergence of a regional competitor growing stronger and developing its international contacts.
Back in April 2025, when Trump unleashed trade wars with virtually the entire world, the US administration announced the introduction of a 10% tariff on Brazilian goods. Unlike other Latin American leaders, Lula did not flinch, and the Brazilian government was not afraid to impose retaliatory measures, after which relations began to spiral, sometimes to an extreme degree by previous standards.
In the summer of 2025, the conflict surrounding the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch supporter of US policies, also known as the “Amazonian Trump”, generated widespread public attention. The US State Department likely believed this meant he was immune from prosecution.
For Brazil, this case became a true test of strength: either defy the US and find the former president guilty, or compromise and suffer reputational losses, publicly ceding some of its sovereignty. The Lula administration upped the ante – Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Ultimately, Trump’s aggressive and undoubtedly politicised response to the persecution of his former protégé resulted in the imposition of “punitive” 50% trade tariffs on Brazilian imports. In response to Bolsonaro’s conviction, the US Treasury and State Departments also imposed sanctions against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, citing the Magnitsky Act, and revoked the visas of several other officials.
The peak of this painful reflection on Brazil’s independent position was the Executive Order Trump passed on July 30 of this year, with the telling title “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Brazil”, which clearly stated that the “recent policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Brazil threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”. “Members of the Government of Brazil have taken actions that interfere with the economy of the United States.”
It should be noted that a similarly “intimidating” statement was also sent to the Russian government, making such gestures the new normal of Trump’s foreign policy pressure, at the level of “harsh” Twitter attacks against politicians who dared to contradict him.
Back in July 2025, Trump published a message on his social media platform, Truth Social, threatening Brazil with 50% tariffs. In response, Lula emphasised that his country remains a sovereign state and will not tolerate outside interference in its internal affairs.
At the same time, on September 14, the Brazilian president published a largely conciliatory article in The New York Times, calling for a separation of political processes from economic realities and declaring that Brazil is ready to develop trade relations with the United States, but in a constructive manner.
According to Lula’s chief foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, “Diversifying our market is key. If these tariffs had been imposed 25 years ago, it would have been a disaster. Today, they are uncomfortable and we must take measures, but we must continue this diversification (…) with BRICS countries and others, too.”
Brazil’s importance on the international stage is difficult to overestimate: in 2024, the country hosted the G20, it holds the BRICS presidency this year (which, of course, is causing the US administration “geopolitical heartburn”), and it is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30). Brazil is traditionally the leader of the Inter-American Community and a member of the subregional Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), the Forum for the Progress and Integration of South America (PROSUR), the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Latin American Economic System (LAES), and the Latin American Integration Association (LAI). It is a long-standing member of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (or Rio Treaty).
This entire array of international platforms and extensive external communications testifies to the growing role of the South American leader, not only in the Western Hemisphere, but also more broadly – in the projection of projects in the Global South and, of course, in the integration formats promoted by China.
The China Factor
Since the early 2000s, US influence in Latin American countries has gradually declined, primarily due to the reorientation of Washington’s foreign policy vector toward the priority of strengthening “Euro-Atlantic solidarity” (The philosophy of Euro-Atlanticism, trans-Atlanticism, manifested itself through the creation of various Euro-Atlantic institutions, particularly NATO and the Marshall Plan. Currently, it presupposes coordinated foreign policy activities among North American states (the US and Canada) and the European Union) and the consolidation of the influence of controlled global institutions of supranational governance.
Located on the periphery of the upcoming global transformational events, Latin America, by inertia, relied on the established US-centric architecture of the political economy. The region’s inherent lag created economic gaps for the “quiet” expansion of Chinese business, which by the 2020s suddenly became a challenge for the United States, which had defocused its attention on the region.
President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has begun to pay particular attention to expanding China’s regional presence. In 2015, he stated that he intended to increase trade turnover with Latin American countries to $500 billion by 2025, emphasising that cooperation would be built on areas such as energy, raw materials, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, innovation, and information technology. Reality has exceeded expectations – trade turnover between China and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024 crossed the mark of 500 billion US dollars for the first time, increasing more than 40 times compared to the same figure at the beginning of this century, as stated by the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, while delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the fourth ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in May 2025.
Brazil’s trade relations with China began in the late 1990s and have persisted regardless of whether the right or left was in power. Unlike the United States, which supported the overthrow of the democratically elected government of João Goulart during the Cold War, China has never interfered in Brazilian politics. A recent survey showed that most Brazilians have a positive view of China, which has remained their largest trading partner and top export destination for 15 years in a row, while Brazil is China’s top trading partner in Latin America.
In 2025, significant developments occurred which strengthened this strategy. In July, on the side-lines of the 17th BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and China announced the construction of a transoceanic railway corridor with access to the Pacific coast of Peru. Chinese automaker BYD (which recently surpassed its American competitor Tesla in revenue) presented the first electric car, fully assembled in Brazil, at is brand new plant in Camaçari, Bahia. It is the company’s first factory outside Asia.
In 2025, Brazil became the world’s second-largest destination for Chinese investment. In the first six months, Chinese companies invested $22 billion abroad, with Brazil receiving $2.2 billion, or 10% of the total. China’s Meituan is investing $1 billion to launch a food delivery service in Brazil. This decision was announced at a forum of Brazilian and Chinese companies and is part of a larger investment by Chinese companies in Brazil, which will total approximately $4.7 billion.
The trade balance has historically favoured Brazil, although China has increased its exports in recent years. When US tariffs took effect, China allowed 183 new Brazilian coffee companies to sell their products in its market, and did the same for other goods. Total trade turnover by the end of this year is projected to be around 160 billion US dollars , which is comparable to the figure for 2024, while with the United States this volume amounted to 127 billion dollars.
In August of this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that under the strategic leadership of President Xi Jinping and President Lula da Silva, China and Brazil are working together to build a “community of shared future for a more just world and a more sustainable planet.”
In August of this year, after an hour-long phone call with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated: “China-Brazil relations are at their best in history, with a good start and strong momentum in building the China-Brazil community with a shared future and aligning development strategies. China is ready to work with Brazil to seize opportunities, strengthen coordination, deliver more mutually beneficial cooperation outcomes, set an example of uniting for strength among major Global South countries, and build a more just world and a sustainable planet.”
Economic Cooperation Between the United States and Brazil
Despite all the challenges and geopolitical turbulence in relations between the countries, over the past four years, Brazil's exports to the United States have grown from $27.48 billion in 2020 to $49.67 billion in 2024. This trend has continued in 2025: in the first half of the year, US imports from Brazil reached $22.17 billion, up 10.63% year-on-year. This makes Brazil a growing strategic partner, a supplier of energy resources, raw materials, and some industrial goods.
Energy and raw materials are key drivers. In 2024, crude and refined oil accounted for nearly 20% of all shipments, valued at $8.73 billion, reflecting Brazil’s ability to meet demand from US refineries and offset supply disruptions from other partners.
Iron-based products, from pig iron and semi-finished products to iron ore, remain the backbone of US production chains, cementing Brazil’s role as a critical supplier of raw materials for steel-using industries.
Brazil’s agricultural exports to the US are showing a noticeable upward trend, particularly for fruit juices and meat. Coffee ranks second. In terms of both value and strategic importance, exports grew 82.91% at the beginning of 2025. In 2024, the volume of fruit juice shipments reached $1.30 billion; in the first five months of 2025, exports amounted to $683.19 million, an increase of 39.09%.
Meat products are becoming a sought-after category of goods. From January to May 2025, the United States imported $1.12 billion worth of Brazilian meat, with supply volumes increasing 143.82%. This already indicates a change in the supply structure of the US meat market and is due to competitive prices and the stability of Brazilian contractual obligations.
Questions about the degree of politicisation of the economy are also interrelated with Brazil’s highly dependent and strategically risky product categories for the United States, some of which account for over 60%.
The Critical Minerals Working Group, co-led by the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources and the US Department of Energy, aims to align regulatory frameworks, improve geological mapping, and expand bilateral cooperation on critical minerals and sustainable supply chain development. This is another highly sensitive area of cooperation for the United States, where disruption to existing mechanisms could lead to serious negative economic consequences. A diplomatic crisis between the two largest countries in the Western Hemisphere risks derailing years of US efforts to secure access to Brazilian rare earth minerals.
Brazil’s export portfolio to the US is becoming more valuable and strategically significant, thanks to its leadership in energy and commodities, rapid agricultural growth, and strong position in industrial raw materials. The growth trend in 2025 suggests further expansion, although the high degree of dependence increases the risks of any potential trade or logistics disruptions.
These disruptions are already clearly visible and are caused by the Trump administration’s impulsive policy of forcing the Latin American leader and key regional partner to comply through strong-arm economic pressure. This is illegal and runs counter to the long-term fundamental commodity interests of the US, among other things.
Conclusion
At this stage, political disagreements between the US and Brazil are entailing real costs for both sides. At the same time, these processes point to likely irreversible transformational shifts in the Western Hemisphere as a whole, where the previous policy of a single decision-making centre represented by Washington has lost its relevance, and emerging and strengthening centres of power will continue to strive for autonomy and the diversification of their external relations, including those outside the region, relying on alternative integration projects to the West.
Diversifying the channels of foreign investment, primarily through China, allows Brazil to maintain and develop critical infrastructure, creating new high-tech industrial capabilities, and also providing access to markets in the Global South.
The large-scale restructuring of relations with the US and Brazil is primarily associated with their adaptation to the Trump administration’s foreign policy style, the cornerstone of which is an aggressive and unpredictable message and comprehensive pressure aimed at securing a quick and successful “deal” for the US.
In this regard, Lula da Silva demonstrated a refined skill in quickly adapting to a dynamically evolving environment with high levels of uncertainty and, at times, incompetence, as well as the political will to respond in defence of Brazil’s national sovereignty.
Thanks to its size, colossal resource base, and developed state institutions, Brazil has every opportunity to become a truly independent player on the global stage. This requires ensuring genuine strategic and technological autonomy, as well as diversifying its partnerships and strengthening its international role in key, increasingly influential integration platforms operating outside the Washington Consensus.
