Brazilian government calls for probe into US funding of far-right causes

Attorney General Jorge Messias called for the probe on Thursday, one day after the British newspaper The Guardian published a story suggesting that the administration of United States President Donald Trump planned to award $1m to right-wing civil groups opposing the Brazilian Supreme Court.

Messias stated in a social media post that foreign meddling “cannot be tolerated” and that the report represented “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”.

“The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” the attorney general added.

The report comes amid a tense presidential election in which leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is seeking re-election.

Lula has sought to focus attention on efforts Trump has undertaken to boost the prospects of far-right allies across Latin America, warning of threats to regional sovereignty.

Trump has endorsed multiple right-wing candidates ahead of elections across the region, sometimes hinging the possibility of economic support on the voting results.

He has also cultivated close relations with the family of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost to Lula in the last presidential election.

Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, is a frontrunner in the race to challenge Lula this year. Recent polls have shown Lula and Bolsonaro virtually tied ahead of the first round of voting on October 4.

Flavio Bolsonaro met with Trump at the White House in May. He has promised closer ties with the US, while Lula has positioned himself as a critic of Trump’s interventionist approach to Latin American politics and security.

The Guardian report published on Wednesday states that the Trump administration sought to redirect $175m from the State Department’s human rights fund to various far-right causes around the world.

The recipients allegedly included groups advocating for white Afrikaners in South Africa that the Trump administration has falsely portrayed as victims of a “genocide” and efforts in Brazil to counter what the US called “lawfare and censorship”.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has been a subject of frequent criticism from the political right, both in Brazil and the US.

Much of that criticism stems from the 2025 conviction of Jair Bolsonaro for involvement in an alleged coup plot, designed to subvert his loss to Lula in the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro and his allies, including Trump, have depicted the case as an instance of political persecution.

Citing the trial, Trump last year placed 50-percent tariffs on certain Brazilian goods that he has since removed.

At the time, he announced the tariffs in a letter that denounced Bolsonaro’s prosecution. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace,” Trump wrote.

The Trump administration also revoked the visas of Brazilian judicial officials involved in Bolsonaro’s case in an effort to have it tossed out. It also levied short-lived sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of “an unlawful witch hunt” against right-wing voices.

Bolsonaro was ultimately convicted and sentenced to a 27-year prison sentence in September 2025.

In June, one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, was sentenced to more than four years in prison after a court ruled he had lobbied for US interference in his father’s case.