Holed up in Brazil under threat of arrest, former President Jair Bolsonaro is looking to Donald Trump for a lifeline.
The man once dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” sees his political mentor’s return to power as a chance to escape his legal difficulties, overturn a ban on running for office and fight next year’s presidential election.
In a rare interview, Bolsonaro exuded excitement about what’s to come from the man he refers to as Trumpão — Big Trump — and less flatteringly, Big Carrot, a reference to the president’s orange-hued tan.
His hope is that Trump and like-minded leaders including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Argentina’s Javier Milei come to his aid.
While refusing to discuss specifics, he sees an international mobilization of nationalist right-wing forces pressuring leftist Brazilian officials “to recognize that Brazil’s elections won’t be fair as there is no opposition.”
Bolsonaro was a Covid-vaccine skeptic whose supporters attempted an alleged coup after his election defeat. He cast doubt on the voting system and is legally barred from leaving the country. His musings could be dismissed as fantasy.
Yet they show the expectations that flow from Trump’s willingness to push nations to submit to his will.
We saw it in the short-lived US tariffs slapped on Colombia over deportation flights.
It’s there in the flurry of pledges from Saudi Arabia to India intended to appease Trump. Denmark is struggling to identify a response that could possibly address the president’s demands for US control of Greenland — if that is indeed what he really wants.
Milei, in an interview last week, said it’s hard to grasp what the ultimate goal is “if you fail to understand the playing field that Trump is playing on.”
That’s an ominous warning to any government leaders who still don’t get it. — Alan Crawford