By Steve Holland and Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) – The Trump administration does not plan to back Flavio Bolsonaro’s claim to be Brazil’s rightful leader, despite helping the defeated candidate reach the US after years of supporting him and his father, a US official and another person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
President Donald Trump has said Brazil’s election on Sunday looked “rigged” but has pointed out that he offered no endorsement in the hotly contested race. Trump has also said he gets along well with incumbent leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the 81-year-old former union leader who beat the odds to clinch reelection by 3.5 percentage points.
The US official and the person familiar with the matter, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Trump has no current plans to support Bolsonaro’s political ambitions even as the administration allowed him into the country, though they said the president could change his mind.
The Trump administration’s posture suggests the president may be reluctant to cause a fresh crisis in relations with Brazil, which have gone through ups and downs in recent months.
LAST-SECOND DEPARTURE AFTER COURT RULING ON PASSPORT
A third US official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Bolsonaro’s political capital had fallen now that he is in self-exile. Many conservatives in Brazil who had expected him to lead the opposition in the coming years have criticized his flight.
The White House referred a request for comment to the State Department, which did not reply. The Brazilian government and a representative for Bolsonaro did not respond to requests for comment.
Flavio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is imprisoned in Brazil for attempting a self-coup to stay in power after losing his reelection bid in 2022.
Some Brazilian officials, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Bolsonaro’s departure helps Lula by weakening the conservative opposition in Brazil’s Congress.
Bolsonaro’s flight was a last-second decision that came after a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered him to turn in his passport, granting a request by federal police who are investigating him over two alleged money-laundering schemes, US officials and others familiar with the matter said.
The police request came in just minutes after the election was called for Lula, according to Brazilian media reports, a timeline that some conservatives have pointed to as evidence of political motivation.
Supporters of Lula’s government point out that, days before the election, Flavio’s brother, Eduardo, suggested publicly that Flavio should leave Brazil if he lost. Eduardo, a former congressman who himself lives in the US, was convicted in Brazil in June of courting interference from the Trump administration in his father’s trial.
Argentine authorities said that Flavio Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters crossed a bridge into northern Argentina at 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday before boarding a chartered aircraft at 11:30 p.m. Bolsonaro and his family then flew to Miami via Ecuador.
It is unclear how Bolsonaro traveled from his home in Brasilia to the bridge crossing 750 miles (1,300 km) away or exited Brazil without the knowledge of Brazilian customs officials. But during that journey, Bolsonaro contacted multiple US officials regarding his departure, according to one of the US officials.
Jason Miller, a Trump adviser who is close to the Bolsonaro family, helped arrange the flight from Argentina, the person familiar with the matter said. During Bolsonaro’s journey, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recommended to Trump that Bolsonaro be admitted, a recommendation the president signed off on, according to the US official.
During Bolsonaro’s two-leg flight, State Department officials scrambled to determine the best legal route for admitting him and his family, discussing the matter with Department of Homeland Security personnel, the official said. Ultimately, US authorities granted them humanitarian parole at the border, a temporary status given to individuals when urgent humanitarian concerns or a significant public interest are at play, the official added.
In an open letter posted on X on Wednesday, Bolsonaro declared himself “the elected president.” He then deleted that version and updated it with another letter in which he said he was Brazil’s rightful “leader.”
BRAZILIAN POLITICS WORTHY OF A TELENOVELA
The Bolsonaro departure was the latest chapter in a tumultuous period in Brazilian politics and in US-Brazil relations.
Bolsonaro’s father was president from 2019 to 2023, then lost reelection to Lula and was jailed last year for his self-coup attempt. Lula himself spent 17 months in jail in 2018 and 2019 on corruption charges that were later annulled.
The US last year slapped sanctions on the judge overseeing the trial of the elder Bolsonaro and other Brazilian officials. Washington lifted the sanctions after Trump and Lula had a notably cordial interaction at the UN General Assembly.
During the campaign, Brazil objected to what it called attempts by some US officials to boost the Bolsonaro campaign, and the government has refused to seat the incoming US ambassador to Brazil, a close Rubio ally, in part due to those objections.
Reuters reported last week that two conservative State Department officials successfully pushed for the Brazil sanctions as well as terrorist designations of two Brazilian organized crime groups, measures aimed at tilting the election in Bolsonaro’s favor.
Still, even as Trump has attacked the way Brazil conducted the election, he has refrained from criticizing Lula.
“I like Lula, I get along with him very well,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I just think it had a very bad look, the election.”
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Gram Slattery; Editing by Craig Timberg and William Mallard)
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