MAGA level score against samba as US and Brazil play diplomatic football

Published 5 August 2026 · politics

Washington says Brazil is deliberately dragging its feet until the country's October presidential election (AP) The TOI correspondent from Washington If you think ties between

Washington says Brazil is deliberately dragging its feet until the country's October presidential election (AP) The TOI correspondent from Washington If you think ties between the US and India are shaky, the diplomatic world is shuddering at developments between Washington and Brasília. In a profession where glad-handling and bear hugs, pomp and ceremony, communiques and agreements are the routine between friendly countries, the United States and Brazil have stumbled into a more theatrical mode: ambassadorial brinkmanship.The latest act in this diplomatic telenovela came on Tuesday when the Trump administration revoked the visa of Brazil's ambassador to Washington, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, insisting it was merely "reciprocity" after the Lula government declined to promptly approve the US choice for ambassador to Brasília, former Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez. Washington says Brazil is deliberately dragging its feet until the country's October presidential election; Brasília counters that the US jumped the diplomatic gun by announcing its nominee before completing the customary agrement process and that the Vienna Convention specifies no deadline for approving ambassadors.The result is diplomacy by red card -- in this case denial of visas and ambassadorial appointments, and bruised egos rather than battered bodies.The State Department says Ambassador Viotti's visa will magically reappear the moment Brazil waves through Perez.

Brazil calls the move ideological bullying – the sort of partisan preference Trump has displayed elsewhere, including his recent comments on Indian leadership. Somewhere, generations of diplomats raised on discreet non-partisanship must be wondering if they should have embraced mudwrestling instead.The spat has deeper roots than paperwork and protocol. Brazil recently denied visas to senior US officials whom it accused of planning to cast doubt on the integrity of its electoral system ahead of a fiercely contested presidential election. Washington insists the officials were conducting legitimate diplomatic work; Brasília says they were attempting to influence domestic politics in favor of the Bolsonaro camp.The allegations and counters touch on a recurring theme of Trump's second administration: a muscular willingness in MAGA-era Washington to insert itself into the domestic politics of other nations. Hungary's Viktor Orban has long enjoyed enthusiastic political support from Trump and his allies, while Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei has been embraced as a kindred ideological spirit. Elsewhere, conservative movements in Europe and Latin America have found sympathetic MAGA ears.Whether this activism has produced durable foreign-policy gains is another matter.