Brazil: a stage for imperialist conflict

Since before the current Trump administration took office, the United States has been imposing aggressive trade tariffs around the world. In 2019, it imposed tariffs on Brazilian steel; in 2023, it was sugar's turn. China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran and many other countries that have challenged US hegemony have faced sanctions, economic barriers and even military intervention.

[Originally published in Portuguese at comunistasrevolucionarios.pt]

This is the desperate policy of a declining empire seeking to maintain its dominance over the global financial system, over strategic trade routes, and to secure its position in the exploitation of natural resources and labour globally.

Trump’s victory in 2024 represented a dramatic acceleration of this process. It came against the backdrop of the crisis of international capitalism: the ‘pie’ of the global market is shrinking, and therefore the struggle for control of it is intensifying. By intensifying the trade wars, Trump has plunged the world, already mired in the chronic crisis of decaying capitalism, into an even greater whirlwind of instability.

However, Trump’s anti-establishment rhetoric and nostalgia about restoring US imperialism to its glory days when it was a dynamic power emerging from the shadow of British decline, have no material basis for realisation today. The world has changed, and no matter how much Trump wants to revive the past, the political and economic reality no longer allows it.

As the US empire slowly decomposes, a group of countries led by China and Russia are seeking independence from Washington. They seem immune to Trump’s blackmail policies.

They are moving further and further away from the dollar, and are attracting more countries that want to take advantage of the decline of the US with economic alternatives: infrastructure financing via the BRICS bank, trade between countries using local currencies instead of the dollar, the still-developing BRICS currency for international trade, and even local electronic payment initiatives such as Brazil's PIX.

These alternatives still have limited reach and do not decisively challenge the dominance of the dollar. But they are already bothering the old empire.

This demonstrates, on the one hand, the enormous power that the US and its currency still wield, and on the other, the significant internal contradictions of the emerging countries that make up the BRICS, as these countries are also subject to the laws of capitalist decline. However, Chinese capitalism, which is more dynamic and vibrant than US capitalism, is drawing more countries into its orbit, which are becoming the targets of Trump's wrath.

China and Russia have been dragged by US imperialism and its European lackeys into endless trade wars. They have had no alternative but to establish a series of cooperation agreements in order to defend their interests.

These agreements have crystallised into initiatives in which the two countries simultaneously cooperate and compete in Eurasia and the so-called ‘global south’. The New Silk Road, the military and economic partnerships between Beijing and Moscow, the Arctic Route, the North-South corridor, and the expansion of the BRICS+ are initiatives led by China and Russia that overlap and are beginning to bother US imperialism.

At the same time, US domestic politics highlights the growing fragility of Trump, who is watching his domestic support begin to evaporate.

In Brazil, Bolsonarism functions as an arm of Trumpism, obediently following Washington's guidelines / Image: Trump White House, Flickr

On the foreign front, the US president is using the international far right as vectors for his agenda, exploiting the unconditional alignment of allies in various countries. In Brazil, Bolsonarism functions as an arm of Trumpism, obediently following Washington's guidelines. The extreme belligerence towards Venezuela, reduction of tariffs on trade with the US, the anti-Chinese rhetoric and the anti-vaccine policies during the pandemic in Bolsonaro's first term are clear examples of this servile relationship.

Recently, Trump raised tariffs on several Brazilian products to 50 percent, a clear act of aggression. The initial false justification – an alleged trade deficit that is in fact a surplus – quickly gave way to blatant cynicism: ‘because I can.’

However, there is an economic conflict here that we must highlight: Brazilian and US agribusiness are in competition. China's reciprocal response to US tariffs has increased the potential for Brazilian producers to export to the Chinese market, and the Americans want to prevent Brazilian competition from taking advantage of this.

There is also an apparently ideological dimension, as revealed by Steve Bannon and confirmed by Trump on another occasion: the tariffs would be reduced if Bolsonaro were acquitted in his court cases. This absurd, seemingly ideological blackmail allows him to keep allies in Brazil and elsewhere on side by framing tariffs as merely a political clash, whilst continuing to pursue what is in substance a trade war and the material objectives of US imperialism bound up with it.

What exactly would it mean if Bolsonaro, ‘Trump’s attack dog’, was let loose on Brazil? Although the details of the deal between Trump and the Bolsonaro clan remain unclear, there is speculation that a victory for Bolsonarism in the upcoming elections would lead to the surrender of the Amazon and Brazil's rare earths to US control, as well as the dismantling of the PIX [Brazil’s payment system], Brazil's exit from the BRICS and a curb on trade relations with China.

This last point is crucial: Brazil is one of the world's ten largest economies and China's main trading partner in Latin America. Its submission to the US would be a strategic defeat for Beijing. This would not mean, however, the end of trade between Brazil and China, which continued with great intensity even during Bolsonaro's presidency.

The mainstream media in the US and its Brazilian branches, which are disguised as ‘independent’ media outlets, reflect the interests of the giants of finance capital. Although they criticise the aggressive policies of Trump and Bolsonaro, they do not question the fundamental objectives of US imperialism: the removal of Brazil from the BRICS, the exploitation of Brazil's natural resources by the US and the maintenance of the dollar as the hegemonic currency.

What the US establishment really wants in Brazil is a ‘third way’ – a docile government that submits completely to Washington's interests. However, this desire is becoming increasingly distant. A significant fraction of the Brazilian bourgeoisie has one foot in the sinking ship of US imperialism and the other in the camp of emerging Chinese imperialism. They are struggling to maintain this balance.

This is because the Trump administration's aggressiveness has created a dilemma for the Brazilian bourgeoisie: should it prioritise trade with the US at the expense of a cooling of trade relations with China, or should it favour trade relations with China and reduce exports to the US?

Until recently, Brazilian capitalism was in an advantageous position, as the 10 percent tariffs announced by Trump previously favoured Brazil, as they were lower than those of its competitors. At the same time, with the US-China trade war ongoing, Brazil was gaining ground in the Chinese market (for example, by increasing exports of meat and soybeans to China).

This contradiction is manifesting itself in a flurry of political clashes, contradictory statements and changes of position. It is an insoluble problem for the Brazilian bourgeoisie, which will invariably be left in the wake of antagonistic interests.

The Bolsonaro group, marked by ignorance and reactionary attitudes, is sustained by agribusiness, the petty bourgeoisie, the plundering of natural resources, extortionate interest rates and the Brazilian tax haven for the economic elite. Despite Bolsonaro's anti-Chinese rhetoric and total submission to the United States, his base in agribusiness is largely dependent on exports to China and Russian fertilisers, while another group profits from the sale of Chinese industrial products.

This contradiction between rhetoric and practice was evident when Bolsonaro was president of Brazil: he acted as a watchdog, barking on behalf of US interests, but without the teeth to break ties with China or Russia.

The other faction of the Brazilian national bourgeoisie includes the fragile industrial sector which, with the hesitating help of the Lula government, is trying to rebuild itself, taking advantage of Brazil's hitherto ‘neutral’ position towards the two imperialist rivals – a strategy similar to that adopted by Getúlio Vargas during the Second World War.

Lula hopes to fill the economic gap left by the trade war between the US and China with Brazilian products. Take soybeans as an example: in 2024, almost half of US soybean exports were destined for China. In this scenario of trade war, it is estimated that Brazilian soybean exports to China, which were already significant, will increase by more than $7 billion in the coming period.

Thanks to newly signed agreements, Chinese investment in Brazil is expected to grow strongly until at least 2032 / Image: Palácio do Planalto, Wikimedia Commons

On the other hand, China is losing part of the US market for high-tech products, such as electric cars. In this sector, the Lula government is opening Brazil to Chinese capital exports, allowing the establishment of electric car assembly plants on Brazilian soil. In fact, these policies have accelerated the growth of the industry in Brazil, which grew at twice the global average in 2024.

Over the past 14 years, China has invested $66 billion in Brazil. Thanks to newly signed agreements, Chinese investment in Brazil is expected to grow strongly until at least 2032. These investments aim to create alternative routes and expand markets for the flow of China's huge industrial output to Latin America and, conversely, the export of Latin America's enormous production of raw materials to China.

In order for such a large flow of goods to take place, investments in infrastructure are being financed, for the most part, by the Chinese state. The most ambitious project is the connection of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in an effort to create an alternative to the Panama Canal and also with a greater focus on the so-called ‘global south’ market. The project, which is still under study, aims to connect the newly inaugurated Peruvian mega-port of Chancay to the port of Ilhéus in Bahia (Brazil), which is undergoing major expansion and modernisation works, via rail.

In addition to this project, there are also a series of construction, renovation, expansion and modernisation projects for railways, ports, airports and roads throughout Latin America.

In this scenario, Brazil's room for manoeuvre under capitalism is limited to the choice between dependence on this or that imperialist power. The national bourgeoisie is tied by a thousand threads to US imperialism. However, it is also increasingly linked to and dependent on Chinese imperialism. Lula, however much he wants to defend national sovereignty, has never been – and never will be – a revolutionary. Sovereignty within the framework of capitalism is the sovereignty of the Brazilian bourgeoisie to do business not only with Washington, but also with Beijing and Moscow, always at the expense of the working class.

Lula's history is marked by class conciliation, and his current government of national unity with bourgeois parties further dilutes any genuinely progressive politics, becoming hostage to municipal councils, state governments and a congress dominated by the right wing. Lula is currently trying to use anti-imperialist rhetoric to inflame the nationalist sentiment of the Brazilian people and, with their support, gain more political room for manoeuvre in his current term and consolidate himself as a candidate for the next election.

The new and unstable ‘multipolar’ order that is emerging in the heat of the chronic crisis of world capitalism – despite the arguments of some who present it as less authoritarian and repressive, offering more room for weaker nations to assert their national sovereignty – will also not bring substantial and lasting gains for the proletariat. On the contrary, it will bring wars, tariffs, nationalist fanaticism and militarism, especially to the dependent countries crushed between the two blocs.

Only a revolution led by the Brazilian and international working class can free the country from the clutches of imperialism – whether American or Chinese – and bring genuine development and peace to the peoples of the world. As long as Brazil remains within the limits of capitalism, it will be condemned to be a secondary player on the geopolitical chessboard, oscillating between submission to a decadent empire and an emerging empire. True emancipation will only come with a revolutionary break.