Did Brazil Forget To Call The USA?
Answer: no — and this is now confirmed by omission rather than assertion. Al Jazeera's roll-call, USA Today's Washington-side account, MercoPress's regional survey and The Telegraph all record congratulations flowing to Lula from Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada, the EU, France, Spain, China, Russia and Cuba. None records any Brazilian contact with Rubio or the White House in the 48 hours since the runoff. The last documented Vieira–Rubio contact remains the January 31 call.
Granted, the conciliatory gesture isn't obligatory. It's optional, and Lula has already demonstrated he knows how to make it when he wants: he met Trump at the White House in May 2025, secured tariff relief and the lifting of sanctions on a Supreme Court justice.
He knows the line is open. He declined to make the call. Which sharpens the point that it isn't whether Brazil can afford to provoke Washington — it plainly can absorb more than most. The question is why it chose silence when the cost of a call was near zero and Trump had already said "I like Lula, I get along with him very well." The answer is domestic, and it's the part the media framing obscures. Lula won by running against American interference:
"This country doesn't accept being anybody's colony"
"Brazil belongs to Brazilians"
“Bolsonaro is Trump's candidate”
A victory-night call to Rubio would have retroactively validated every charge his opponent made about subservience to Washington. He cannot cash the anti-imperialist dividend and telephone the imperialist in the same news cycle.
That's not petulance, by the way; it's the calculation of a leader whose mandate rests on having defied the US — which is precisely why it may be more costly than a diplomatic slight. Insults expire as feelings change. A mandate built on defiance has to be honored until the constituency forgets why it voted. On timing, though, it's been roughly 36 hours. Lula takes office January 1. What to watch:
1. The Legislature: What "Right Wing Majority" Means In Practice.
It's not just a majority — it's the most right-wing Congress in Brazil's democratic era. CNN's numbers are precise:
- Chamber of Deputies: 303 right-wing seats out of 513 (59%), versus 124 for the left and 86 for the center.
- Senate: The right controls nearly two-thirds.
- The map of governors: Also heavily conservative
This isn't a legislature that will negotiate with Lula. It will override him. He already learned this in 2025: Congress overrode his veto to reduce Jair Bolsonaro's 27-year sentence. His nominee to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate — the first such rejection in 132 years.
All that before the election. So, the constraint isn't ideological disagreement. It's arithmetic. Lula cannot pass anything without building a coalition that includes the Liberal Party (PL) — the same party his son Flávio leads. The parliament is the movement he defeated. This is the core of what analysts mean when they say his road will be harder than any previous term.
2. The Economy: The Specific Numbers Behind Fiscal Constraints.
Lula faces fiscal constraints, and that half of Brazilians say the economy has gotten worse. Let's get specific, because the constraints are structural:
- Debt: Brazil's net debt-to-GDP ratio is near 70%, up from roughly 50% in 2022.
- Interest rates: The Selic rate is high and the central bank is independent of Lula's command. That means he cannot lower borrowing costs to stimulate growth.
- Perception gap: Voters feel the economy is worse because inflation on food and transport has outpaced wage growth, even as headline GDP numbers were acceptable.
The campaign ad that worked — the one calling Bolsonaro "Trump's candidate" — ran against the message that Lula was delivering economic relief. It wasn't. So, his mandate rests on a narrative of sovereignty, not on deliverables. That changes what he can promise. He can't credibly say "I'll cut taxes and raise spending," without provoking the bond market. He can't credibly say "I'll fight Trump," without risking the 25% tariff that's already in place.
3. The “Us” Tariff: The Actual Threat, Not The Rhetorical One
This is the most consequential item on the agenda, and it's where reporting is thinnest:
- The 25% tariff on Brazilian goods is not a negotiation tactic. It's a legally imposed duty under US investigation into unfair trade practices.
- It was imposed in mid-2025, after Trump had already removed tariffs on beef, coffee and cocoa to protect US grocery prices.
- The tariff regime is alive and it will be in effect on January 5, 2027, when Lula takes office.
What the media is not saying is there is no mechanism for Lula to reduce this tariff unilaterally. The US Trade Representative imposes it. Congress could repeal it, but the same right-wing Congress that hates Lula has no incentive to do anything that helps him. The only path is negotiation, and Lula has already demonstrated he can negotiate, having met Trump at the White House in May 2025, secured tariff relief on specific products, and the removal of sanctions on a Supreme Court justice. The question is whether he can do that again without looking like he just called Rubio.
4. Jair Bolsonaro: The Legal Time Bomb
This is the item that makes predictions absurd, because it's not something that might happen, it's something that is already happening:
- Bolsonaro is serving 27 years for attempting a coup.
- Congress has already voted to reduce his sentence, overriding Lula's veto.
- Full amnesty is being pushed by Senator Espiridião Amin, a Bolsonaro ally, who called the sentence reduction a step toward the full amnesty.
Two mechanisms exist:
- Congressional amnesty law requires a new vote after the January 2027 legislature takes office.
- Presidential pardon is only available if a friendly president is in power (and Lula is not friendly).
But Congress is. The Supreme Court will likely challenge any amnesty legislation on constitutional grounds, but the political pressure on the Court will be enormous, and Justice Alexandre de Moraes — the same justice who sentenced Bolsonaro — is already under attack by the Bolsonaro movement.
This isn't a future scenario. It's a live legislative process that Lula's victory has not stopped. It has only changed the calculus. Now the amnesty vote happens under a Lula government, which means it becomes a referendum on his authority, not just a procedural vote.
5. Regional Isolation: The Contrast With The Pink Tide
This is the most under-discussed item. Lula had regional allies during his first terms — Kirchner in Argentina, Morales in Bolivia, Chávez in Venezuela; however, those governments are gone. Every other major South American economy is now run by a right-wing government:
- Argentina: Javier Milei (Trump ally)
- Chile: José Antonio Kast (congratulated Lula but is ideologically opposite)
- Colombia: Abelardo De La Espriella (Trump ally, supported Bolsonaro)
- Peru: Keiko Fujimori (congratulated Lula)
- Ecuador: Daniel Noboa (congratulated Lula)
Lula is the only major South American president who is not right-wing. His "strategic autonomy" is now a solo project, not a multilateral strategy.
China is his largest trading partner, not the US. That's a structural advantage against Trump's pressure, but it's also a limitation: China will not subsidize Lula's domestic economic problems, as it will not intervene in Brazil's internal politics to protect Bolsonaro.
Open the envelope and here's what Lula wins:
- A hostile Congress that has already overruled him, and which holds the legislative path to freeing the man whose son he just defeated.
- A 25% US tariff that he cannot remove — and which requires a negotiation he may not be able to make without appearing to capitulate.
- A domestic economy where fiscal space is exhausted — and where voter perception of failure has already cost him support.
- A regional left in retreat, leaving him without the multilateral alliances that made "strategic autonomy" feasible in 2003.
- A Bolsonarismo movement that is institutionalized and not defeated. Flávio has refused to concede, is challenging the result in court, and is being barred from travel.
The election didn't reset the board. It just gave Lula another four years to play a hand he was already losing.