Socialist President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump not “meddle in Brazil’s elections” after Trump commented on the recent conviction of Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
According to Brazilian outlets, Lula claimed that President Trump “acts like an emperor” and asserted that he considered his attitude towards Brazil to be “disrespectful.”
Both President Trump and Lula traveled to Evian, France, to participate in this week’s G7 Summit, hosted by the French government of President Emmanuel Macron. Asked by reporters for comment on his exchanges with Lula during the G7 Summit, President Trump confirmed the two discussed U.S. tariffs on Brazil and the recent terrorist designation of dangerous Brazilian gangs.
“I spent a lot of time with him, actually, and it’s become a little rough country, right, politically. It’s been a little dangerous politically. You’re talking about Brazil? It’s been nasty,” President Trump said. “I heard they arrested somebody that’s running for office today, I found that out after we left. I just said goodbye to him, and I heard that they arrested Bolsonaro, Jr. He was doing well in the polls, and they arrested him.”
“Because he made a statement in Texas they arrested him, or they want to arrest him, they have something out for his arrest,” Trump clarified. “They play pretty tough. But nobody plays tougher than the United States. Look, our elections are totally rigged, we have rigged elections.”
On Tuesday, Brazil’s highest court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) convicted Eduardo Bolsonaro and sentenced him to four years and two months in prison on “coercion” charges for allegedly “courting U.S. interference” over the past year to “influence” the trial against Jair Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro, a former Brazilian lawmaker, fled Brazil in 2025 and requested political asylum, in the United States.
The younger Bolsonaro has denounced being the target of a persecution campaign led by STF Justice Alexandre de Moraes — a presiding justice in both his and his father’s trials and a man widely described as the most powerful judge in Brasil.
While Eduardo Bolsonaro was recently convicted, his older brother, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, is the Bolsonaro sibling currently running for president in the October 2026 presidential election, in which Lula is seeking to be reelected to a fourth term. Sen. Bolsonaro is running for president after his father, Jair Bolsonaro, was imprisoned and banned from for running for office until 2060.
President Trump’s remarks appear to have upset Lula, who criticized the American president during a press conference held at the Brazilian embassy in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday. Asked by reporters for comment on Trump’s remarks in Evian, Lula urged Trump to not “meddle” in Brazilian elections. The Brazilian president argued that he thinks Trump has the right to his own political preferences and ideological views — stressing that he hopes Trump does not “violate the code of ethics among nations that want their sovereignty to be respected.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he can keep liking Bolsonaro, the father, the son, the grandson. I have no problem with that. It’s his problem. After all, you can’t argue about personal preferences. But don’t meddle in Brazil’s elections,” Lula said.
“Elections in Brazil are Brazil’s problem, just as U.S. elections are their problem and not mine. The only thing I want is respect for Brazil, just as I have for the United States,” he added.
According to the left-wing newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, Lula, referring to his interactions with Trump, said that he considered his attitude towards Brazil to be “disrespectful” and asserted that Trump “acts like an emperor.” President Trump’s support of former President Jair Bolsonaro and his sons amid Justice de Moraes’ actions against the Bolsonaros appears to be a strong point of contention for President Lula.
Lula participated in this week’s G7 Summit as an invited guest to the event, as Brazil is not a member of the bloc. Reports published in recent days noted the possibility of a new meeting between Trump and Lula on the summit after both heads of state met at the White House in May.
The G7 Summit in France occurred shortly after the United States designated the dangerous Brazilian gangs Comando Vermelho (Red Command) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Capital Command, or PCC) as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) and Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Brazilian government officials have publicly expressed opposition to the designations. According to Folha, Lula said that he used his encounter with Trump to refute the designations.
“I was surprised when I received the news last week about the sanctions, which even classified the criminal factions as terrorists,” Lula reportedly said. “I had told them that, to the Brazilian people, these criminal actions are acts of terrorism. They aren’t terrorists in the way you think, they don’t want to fight and defeat the state, they don’t want to create another state, they want money. So it’s different.”
The SDGT and FTO designations against Red Command and PCC were announced hours after President Trump met with Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro at the White House in late May. During the meeting, the Bolsonaro siblings requested that the United States consider the designations. Days after the meeting, President Lula, speaking at an official government event, publicly suggested that the Bolsonaro family should be “hanged” for meeting with Trump and requesting the terrorist designation of the deadly gangs.
Additionally, both countries are enduring trade-related tensions after U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer announced this month that the Trump administration is evaluating imposing another round of 25-percent tariffs on Brazilian goods after the USTR determined that Brazil is engaging in unfair trading practices hurting U.S. commerce.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here