Brazil's presidential campaign has entered its final week with US interference as the dominant issue. Lula's Workers' Party broadcast a minute-long TV ad accusing Donald Trump of seeking to "colonise" Brazil and capture its natural resources by backing far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. The ad cited intelligence agency warnings of "critical level" US interference risk, Big Tech manipulation reports, and links between Bolsonaro's campaign and the Rockbridge donor network co-founded by JD Vance. The framing is deliberate and historically loaded. "Colonise" is not throwaway rhetoric in a country whose entire modern economy was shaped by extractive colonialism. Lula is drawing a straight line: Bolsonaro wins, Brazil's rare earths and natural resources flow to Washington on Washington's terms. "If it's up to him, Brazil will become a colony again," Lula wrote on X. The campaign is planning nationwide street mobilisations for Sunday. The alleged interference toolkit is multifaceted: 25% tariffs on Brazilian imports creating economic pressure, diplomatic arm-twisting, and a donor-network pipeline connecting US conservative money to Bolsonaro's campaign. Brazil's intelligence agency sent a confidential document to electoral authorities flagging the threat. At the UN General Assembly, Lula told delegates: "We will not allow the enemies of democracy — internal or external — to attack the will of the people." Critically, opposition to perceived US meddling is not confined to the left. Right-wing candidate Renan Santos publicly denounced Trump's behaviour, saying he did not want Brazil to become a US "vassal state" and citing rare earths as the prize. "I don't want to see Latin America become an American protectorate," Santos said, invoking the US invasion of Venezuela in January. When both left and right candidates in a foreign election denounce your interference, the interference has become the story. Dozens of Democratic Party members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, describing a "sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilisation" and asking whether the administration would commit to respecting Brazil's electoral process. They requested a response by 1 October. The State Department has not responded; its prior statement called meddling allegations "a baseless lie." The State Department's blanket denial collides with a growing body of circumstantial evidence and cross-partisan concern both inside Brazil and within the US Congress. The tariff pressure, donor-network links, and intelligence agency warnings create a pattern that is difficult to dismiss as paranoia. Whether the interference is coordinated or emergent, its political effect is measurable: it has handed Lula a closing argument that resonates across ideological lines. With polls showing Lula and Bolsonaro neck and neck ahead of the 4 October first round — and a potential 25 October run-off — the interference narrative could prove decisive. The question is no longer whether Washington is influencing Brazil's election but whether Brazilians will punish or reward the candidate perceived as Washington's proxy.
