U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly refused to support Flávio Bolsonaro's claim to the Brazilian presidency following his defeat in the presidential election and subsequent flight to the United States last week.
According to a report published by Reuters on Friday, President Trump has told those around him that he will not support Bolsonaro's claim, despite reportedly having helped the younger Bolsonaro escape Brazil following his electoral defeat to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Last Sunday, Bolsonaro suffered a surprise defeat to da Silva in an election that many had expected him to win, particularly given the strong performance of Bolsonaro and his party in the first round earlier in the month.
Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, refused to concede the election, instead alleging that voter fraud had robbed him of victory.
On Tuesday, Brazilian authorities ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports and prohibited him from leaving the country amid ongoing criminal investigations, including allegations of money laundering.
Bolsonaro and his family subsequently disappeared from public view, arriving in the United States on Wednesday in what appeared to be a coordinated effort involving the U.S. and Argentine governments, which had granted them visas.
Shortly after arriving, Bolsonaro published a statement on social media declaring himself ".....as the true elected President of Brazil." However, less than an hour later, he deleted the statement and reposted it, removing any direct claim to the presidency and instead referring to himself as the "leader of Brazil."
That same day, when asked about Bolsonaro's statement, President Trump, who had previously supported the elder Bolsonaro and suggested that he believed there had been fraud in the election, responded: "I won't get involved. It was a very strange election, that's for sure."
Trump did, however, state that he "liked" President Lula da Silva, further signaling that he had no intention of recognizing a Brazilian government-in-exile.
Bolsonaro's apparent strategy seemed to draw from the playbook of the first Trump administration. In January 2019, the United States recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate president, declaring him the rightful victor in the disputed 2018 presidential election, which Guaidó contested against then-President Nicolás Maduro.
However, unlike Guaidó, who received substantial international support from countries aligned with Washington, Lula's electoral victory was afforded immediate international recognition. This suggested that Washington had no intention of pressuring Western and Latin American governments to reject the election results.
Brazil also presents a very different geopolitical calculation from Venezuela. By 2019, Venezuela had become heavily isolated internationally and was grappling with significant internal political and economic problems. Brazil, by contrast, is a considerably larger and more internationally influential country, as well as a member of BRICS.
A decision by the United States to back Bolsonaro would therefore risk effectively severing relations with Brasília and potentially pushing Brazil closer to Russia and China. Such an outcome could mirror the closer alignment between Belarus and its Eastern allies following the failed 2020 colour revolution and the refusal of the United States and its Western allies to recognize President Aleksandr Lukashenko's electoral victory.