Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his United States counterpart Donald Trump have signalled that relations between their two countries are improving, after months of economic and political tensions.
On Tuesday, the two leaders held a 40-minute phone call that each side described as “productive”.
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Reducing trade barriers and tackling organised crime were among the topics they discussed. Both men agreed they would speak again soon.
“I stressed the urgency of strengthening cooperation with the US to combat international organised crime,” Lula said in a social media post following the call.
“President Trump stressed his full willingness to work with Brazil and that he will give full support to joint initiatives between the two countries to confront these criminal organisations.”
Trump, meanwhile, signalled that their conversation built upon a dialogue they had started in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City.
“President Lula and I established a relationship at a meeting which took place at the United Nations, and I believe it set the stage for very good dialogue and agreement long into the future,” Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social.
“I look forward to seeing and speaking with him soon. Much good will come out of this newly formed partnership!”
Tensions over Bolsonaro
Brazil and the US have generally had strong ties, but that bond hit turmoil earlier this year after Trump returned to the White House for a second term as president.
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Trump, a Republican, had fostered close relations with Brazil’s former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who left office in 2023.
In February, however, Brazil’s attorney general filed charges against Bolsonaro for seeking to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to Lula.
His case was heard by a five-member panel on Brazil’s Supreme Court.
Trump protested the trial, and in July, he threatened to hike tariffs on certain Brazilian exports to 50 percent if the case was not dropped. Those tariffs went into effect in August.
The US also imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on one of the members of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, who played a prominent role in the Bolsonaro investigation.
In response, Lula blasted Trump for interfering in Brazil’s court system and compared the tariffs to “blackmail”.
Bolsonaro has since been sentenced to 27 years in prison and was taken into custody last month.
A detente in relations?
A turning point seemed to come in September, when Lula and Trump shared a brief encounter at the UNGA.
They exchanged a hug, and both men expressed surprise at the warmth of their meeting.
“I was walking in, and the leader of Brazil was walking out,” Trump said at the UN conference. “I saw him. He saw me. And we embraced.”
Trump added that they had “excellent chemistry” and promised to meet Lula again. “He seemed like a very nice man, actually,” Trump said. “He liked me. I liked him. And I only do business with people I like.”
Afterwards, the two leaders met again in Malaysia for a conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
And on November 20, Trump announced he would peel back the tariff hike on certain Brazilian agricultural products, including coffee, cocoa and beef.
On Tuesday, Lula praised the tariff rollback as “very positive” but emphasised that there was more to be done.
“I highlighted that there are still other tariffed products that need to be discussed between the two countries,” Lula said. “Brazil wants to move quickly in these negotiations.”
For his part, Trump signalled that he had discussed the “sanctions imposed on various Brazilian dignitaries” in his conversation with Lula.
The US is Brazil’s second largest trading partner, behind China, and in 2024, the two countries exchanged approximately $127.6bn in goods and services.
While Trump has criticised Brazil’s economic policies as disadvantaging the US, the South American country has a steep trade deficit with the US.
The US exports nearly $91.5bn to Brazil, compared with only $36.1bn in Brazilian exports to the US.
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Collaboration on organised crime
Another pillar of Tuesday’s high-level discussion was the prospect of greater collaboration on organised crime.
Trump has made combating criminal networks in Latin America a major item on his foreign policy agenda. Since returning to office, he has moved to designate numerous Latin American cartels and gangs as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
He has also launched a series of air strikes against boats and other nautical vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, along the South American shoreline.
While Trump has framed the bombing campaign as a necessary bulwark against drug trafficking, human rights experts have called the attacks extrajudicial killings, in violation of international law. At least 83 people have been killed in the strikes.
Lula himself has faced pressure to address crime in Brazil, ahead of his re-election bid in 2026.
In November, for instance, he called on lawmakers in Brazil’s Congress to pursue stronger legislation to combat criminal networks. His proposals included more support for the federal police and Brazil’s intelligence community.
“We need firm and secure laws to fight organised crime,” Lula said in a November 19 post on social media.
Still, the Brazilian government has faced scrutiny for a bloody October 28 police raid in Rio de Janeiro that left 122 people dead.
Lula called for an investigation into the incident, which was meant to combat a criminal organisation known as the Red Command.
After Tuesday’s conversation, however, Lula reiterated that he was committed to “suffocating” the criminal networks in his country, with help from the US.
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