Trump recently boasted that he got “nine out of nine” in Latin America, meaning that nine candidates whom he backed won presidential elections since he came to power for a second time. Brazil might be the tenth. And with it will go the legitimacy of the democratic process in Latin America.
The U.S. president delivered those remarks during a Shield of the Americas event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September. Although he has only formally endorsed three of them—Argentina’s Milei, Colombia’s De la Espriella, and Honduras’s Asfura—the new presidents of Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Peru are also aligned with him.
If we include the Caribbean, treat Mexico as a special case, and consider Venezuela a U.S. protectorate, almost all politicians in power in Latin America have arrived after him and are aligned with the U.S. This is highly significant; it cannot be attributed solely to “local politics,” and it calls into question the legitimacy of the electoral process.
This political shift throughout the continent stands in stark contrast to popular sentiment. According to two separate, large, and relatively credible polls, approval of the U.S. throughout the region has decreased. Trust in the U.S. declined from 48% in 2023 to 40%, according to AmericasBarometer. Similarly, Latinobarómetro indicates that 59% of Latin Americans disapprove of Trump’s foreign policy. Other questions in the polls reveal similar trends.
This contradiction cannot be explained away, as some commentators try to do, by invoking only local reasons and “a swing of the political pendulum amid continued anti-incumbent sentiment across the region.” This would mean ignoring the clear evidence of U.S. interference in the political landscape of the region.
What clearer evidence is there than removing the legitimate president of a country by force and with a bogus legal justification? Then arranging for the political leadership of that country to sell off its resources to U.S. interests. A second case of forceful removal is that of Bolivia’s Attorney General, Roger Mariaca, who was recently kidnapped by security forces.
The reason for this kidnapping, as Nick explained, was that he was “leading investigations of Trump-linked figures accused of corruption, violent crimes and involvement in drug trafficking. They included, first and foremost, the Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, who faces drug-trafficking charges as well as the charge of attempted murder after allegedly ordering a hit on his ex-girlfriend Nadia Beller.”
Cerimedo was MAGA’s man in Latin America, and he worked as an advisor to Milei, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Paz, and Nasri Asfura, all of whom won presidential elections. The election of Nasri Asfura in Honduras was rigged. Before the election, Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of the country who was serving a prison sentence after being convicted of drug trafficking in the U.S. Asfura allegedly won by less than 1% amidst accusations of fraud.
The Honduran elections also gave us “Hondurasgate.” The Spanish outlet Canal Red and the website hondurasgate.ch published audio recordings between Hernández and Asfura that revealed a plot involving the coordination and financing of actors linked to the Republican Party of the United States, the government of Israel, and the president of Argentina, Javier Milei. The purpose was to promote and elect politicians who are aligned with the U.S. and undermine those who are not, using the media among other means.
We have recounted brute force, political consulting, vote tampering, and media manipulation as ways the U.S. has interfered in the electoral processes of Latin America. Another way has been through financing, as was the case in Argentina. In October 2025, Milei faced a very tough midterm election after his party lost in the Buenos Aires regional elections. A $40 billion credit line (officially a swap line) and a direct endorsement from Trump helped him win.
Colombia’s election is a good example of many of these techniques in action. The election was preceded by months of direct smears by Trump directed at Gustavo Petro, the former and first leftist president of the country. This was accompanied by economic and military threats, the withdrawal of previously agreed funds, media campaigns, military agitation through Ecuador, and, finally, according to Petro, tampering with the vote counting. His party lost by a margin of less than 1% to Trump’s officially endorsed candidate.
These are just some of the known ways in which the U.S. has interfered in Latin American politics over the last two years. But there are more that are specific to each country. For example, in Ecuador, security has deteriorated drastically over the last six years, falling from being one of the safest countries in the region to one of the worst in terms of crime. This is a factor that weighed heavily on the election of the current president, Daniel Noboa, who wants to bring back U.S. military bases.
This last example is useful in showing that there are, of course, local conditions, politicians, and parties that have agency; it is not all dictated from above. These could explain the current political shifts if the realities of U.S. interference did not exist. But they do. Trying to explain them without taking these factors into account—not as a secondary factor, but as a primary driver, as we have seen—is, frankly, naive.
Brazil is no different. In fact, U.S. influence has a long history there, similar to other countries in the region. The U.S. engineered a demographic shift in order to gain popular support. Since the Cold War, the CIA orchestrated a geopolitical strategy with allied bodies to suppress liberation theology, expand evangelicalism, and protect U.S. capitalist hegemony. In 1991, less than 9% of the population was evangelical; today, the number is 26.9%. They are the core supporters of Jair Bolsonaro and, now, his son, Flávio Bolsonaro.
Flávio Bolsonaro has just won the first round of the presidential election in Brazil by a margin of less than 2% over Lula da Silva, the current president. Throughout the last year, Trump has directed a campaign against Lula and his government. He imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil and has tried to influence the judicial process against Jair Bolsonaro, who was accused of orchestrating a coup after he lost the election. The Brazilian Federal Police has opened an investigation into the U.S. for trying to interfere with the election.
Brazil is the largest and most populous country in South America, as well as the largest economy. It is the last country in which a sitting leader, Lula da Silva, is not subservient to the current U.S. administration’s policies. Lula understands the power dynamic with the U.S. and is not looking for unnecessary conflict—evidenced by the improvement in the bilateral relationship after they met at last year’s UNGA—but, as he stated during this year’s UNGA, he believes that “Brazilian democracy belongs to Brazilians.”
I have seen Lula up close in a press conference during the BRICS summit hosted by Brazil last year. It was a small event, and we could direct questions to him. He seemed to me like a man who actually believes in the democratic process, not someone who is simply using it to legitimize his power. He also seemed like a politician who actually cares about improving the lives of his fellow citizens. It might be that he is among the last of his kind.
The erosion of the legitimacy of the democratic process in Latin America is not simply a regional issue. It is the manifestation of a pattern that is appearing everywhere elections really matter. For example, the elections in Romania, Moldova, or Armenia going one way, and the elections in Belarus going another. Perhaps with less clarity, we could also include Germany, Hungary, and perhaps soon too, Spain.
I hold onto a maxim that says that the democratic electoral process is only truly free when the result does not matter—that is, when what is at stake will not significantly change regardless of who wins.
