Lula vs. Trump

Different scenarios are playing out in different nations but with similar results: the strengthening of the Left and, in some instances, the weakening of the Right. One type of case is seen in both Brazil and Mexico, where Lula and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum have combined firmness with discretion, in contrast to Petro’s more confrontational rhetoric.

In July, Lula responded defiantly to Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Brazil through punitive tariffs designed to secure the release of the US president’s ally, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed for his involvement in coup and assassination plots. Unlike other heads of state, Lula refused to reach out to Trump, saying, “I’m not going to humiliate myself.” Instead, Lula declared that “Brazil would not be tutored by anyone,” at the same time recalling the 1964 Brazilian coup as a previous instance of US intervention.

The face-off sparked mass pro-government demonstrations throughout the country that far outnumbered those called by the Right demanding the freeing of Bolsonaro. Lula’s supporters blamed the Right for the tariffs, and particularly Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, who campaigned for them after moving to Washington, DC. Lula called Bolsonaro a “traitor” and said he should face another trial for being responsible for what has come to be called “Bolsonaro’s tax.” In a sign that Trump’s tariffs were a game-changing boost for the Left, the eighty-year-old Lula announced last month that he would run for reelection in October 2026, as his popularity reached the 50 percent mark.

Some analysts faulted Lula for having failed to use his thirty-minute videoconference with Trump on October 6 to condemn Washington’s gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean. According to this interpretation of the call, Lula displayed naivete and gutlessness by combining “concern and accommodation with US imperialism” and believing that “negotiations will be guided by a ‘win-win logic.’”

In fact, Lula has spoken out against the US military presence as a “factor of tension” in the Caribbean, which he calls a “zone of peace.” Lula, though, undoubtedly could have gone further, as was urged by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) — which backed Lula’s last presidential bid — by explicitly declaring solidarity with Venezuela against US attacks.

Still, Lula can hardly be accused of submissiveness in his dealings with Trump. Indeed, Lula  and Sheinbaum as well have been adept in their relations with the US president and have ended up getting much of what they wanted. Moreover, at the same time that Trump retreated from his tariff threats against both Brazil and Mexico, he took to praising their respective heads of state.

A United Front in the Making

In Brazil and elsewhere in the region, a new alignment is emerging, drawing in both right- and left-leaning forces in reaction to Washington’s posture. One notable example was Lula’s appointment of Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) activist and former presidential candidate Guilherme Boulos as minister of the presidency in October. Boulos belongs to the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), a leftist split-off from Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) that endorsed Lula’s 2022 presidential candidacy but had ruled out holding positions in his government.

Boulos, who was instrumental in organizing the recent protests against Washington’s tariff hikes, spoke of the significance of his designation: “Lula gave me the mission to help put the government on the street . . . and [listen] to popular demands.” His appointment signals a leftward turn in which, in the words of the Miami-based CE Noticias Financiera, “Lula showed that he is going into the 2026 election ready for war. A war in his own style, using the social movements.”

Venezuela is another example where political actors across much of the political spectrum are converging on the need for a broad front to oppose US aggression in the region. No other Pink Tide government has faced such a rapid succession of regime change and destabilization attempts as Venezuela under the government of Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s successor. The government’s response to these and other challenges has at times deviated from democratic norms and has included concessions to business interests, drawing harsh criticism from both moderate and more radical sectors of the Left.

One leader in the latter category is Elías Jaua, formerly a member of Chávez’s inner circle, whose leftist positions on economic policy and internal party democracy left him marginalized within the Chavista movement. In the face of the US military threat in the Caribbean, Jaua has closed ranks with Maduro and decried the “psychological war” being waged against the president. He went on to say that, in this critical moment, it is necessary “to place the tranquility of the people above any ideological, political, or ulterior interest,” adding “the Homeland comes first.”

Other long-standing political figures who have supported Maduro’s call for a national dialogue to face the US threat — while continuing to criticize Maduro for alleged undemocratic practices — include some on the center and center right of the political spectrum, including former presidential candidates Henrique Capriles, Manuel Rosales, and Antonio Ecarri.

Others are moderate leftists who held important posts under Chávez and/or belonged to the moderate left party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in the 1990s. One of the latter is Enrique Ochoa Antich, who presented a petition signed by twenty-seven leading anti-Maduro moderates that stated “it is disheartening to see an extremist sector of the opposition” supporting sanctions and other US actions. Ochoa Antich proposed a dialogue with government representatives “over the best way to foment national unity and defend sovereignty.”

In Argentina, Trump came to the aid of the Right in what will likely prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. On the eve of the October 2025 legislative elections, Trump offered to bail out the Argentine economy to the tune of $40 billion but only on the condition that the party of right-wing president Javier Milei emerge victorious, which is precisely what happened. Trump’s blackmail was denounced as such by politicians ranging from Peronist leaders linked to former Pink Tide governments to centrists who had been among their most vocal critics. Facundo Manes, leader of the centrist Radical Civic Union, was an example of the latter, declaring “the extortion advances.” Meanwhile on the streets of Buenos Aires, protest banners denouncing Milei were marked by anti-US slogans “Yankee go home” and “Milei is Trump’s mule,” as well as the burning of a US flag.

This convergence around the need to confront Trump’s threats and actions creates an opportunity for progressives and socialists across the continent to unite. The call for such unity was taken up by the São Paulo Forum, a body that brings together over one hundred Latin American leftist organizations, which Lula helped found in 1990. At the outset of Trump’s first administration in 2017, the forum drafted the document “Consensus of Our America” as a response to the neoliberal Washington Consensus and the escalation of US interventionism in the hemisphere.

At the same time that it defended the pluralism of progressive movements and avoided the term “socialism,” the consensus document foresaw the drafting of a more concrete set of reforms and goals. The expected next step, however, never materialized. More recently, the Cuban      political analyst and strategist Roberto Regalado lamented that, despite the urgent need for unity,  “far from consolidating and expanding, the ‘Consensus of Our America’ has languished.”

Trump and the Latin American Right

Much of the Latin American right has tied its fortunes to President Trump. The right-wing presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, and Paraguay are Trump followers, as are Bolsonaro, the Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, and former president Álvaro Uribe in Colombia. In Venezuela, right-wing opposition leader María Corina Machado dedicated her recent Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.

In 2022, Machado’s fellow Venezuelan rightist Leopoldo López cofounded the World Liberty Congress dedicated to regime change in nations that Washington considers adversaries. The idea is in line with the notion of creating an “International of the Right” promoted by Trump strategist Steve Bannon, among others. Bannon founded The Movement in 2016 to unite the European right, but it has been largely snubbed by much of that continent’s right wing.

Such “internationalism” on the Right is even less likely to flourish in Latin America. While in the United States, Trump exploits patriotism — or a perverted form of it — in the case of Latin America, nationalist sentiment and support for Trump are oxymorons, specifically when it comes to tariffs, immigration, threats of military invasion, and the brandishing of the Monroe Doctrine. In Venezuela, for instance, Machado’s popularity has declined and her opposition movement has fractured as a result of popular repudiation of Trump’s policies.

In the United States, Trump plays to his fanatic supporters while his popularity steadily declines. In Latin America, the same is occurring, with the difference being that his popularity couldn’t get much lower than it already is. Pew Research Center reports that just 8 percent of Mexicans have “confidence” in Trump.

Trump has contributed to a major shift in Latin America’s political landscape, now marked by political polarization and leftist inroads. In many countries, the Left — which for decades remained on the sidelines — has become a major point of reference, rallying around the banners of national sovereignty, if not anti-imperialism.

In Chile, a Communist, Jeannette Jara, received a surprising 60.5 percent of the vote in the primaries to represent the main anti-rightist bloc in the upcoming presidential elections. While taking a cautious tone, Jara still directly addressed Trump, saying in the wake of his meddling in Argentine elections, “No US soldiers will enter. Chile is to be respected, and so is its sovereignty.”

In Ecuador, despite harsh repression, the followers of ex–Pink Tide president Rafael Correa have come close to winning the last three presidential elections. And in Colombia, Petro has reinvigorated his movement’s base through his forceful denunciations of US military operations and by leading a drive, begun in October, to secure two million signatures for a national constituent assembly.

“Polarization” often refers to a scenario in which the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum gain ascendancy. That is not what is happening in Latin America, at least on the Left. Instead, there is a convergence of progressives of different political stripes, both domestically and among Pink Tide governments, in their opposition to Trump and all that he represents. The challenge now is to translate this convergence into organized forms of unity — through united fronts at the national level as well as in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other regional bodies.