Front Burner - Brazil rides the 'Donroe Doctrine's' orange wave

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Right now former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is on house arrest, after being sentenced to 27 years in prison. On Sunday his son Flavio won the first round of that country's presidential elections, his wife, and two more of his children were voted into office. A runoff election is three weeks away. It's a stunning political turnaround.In part, because the man who could be toppled by the return of the Bolsonaros, is a towering figure of leftist Latin American politics: Lula da Silva. Under Lula's leadership, tens of millions of Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty. He's currently serving his third term as President.These early results in Brazil mirror a right-wing surge across the region. One that aligns with Donald Trump's so-called 'Donroe Doctrine' where America has free reign to influence, coerce and pick favourites to further U.S. interests.We're joined today by Brian Winter, author of several books on Latin America, editor in chief of Americas Quarterly and Vice President of policy at the Council of the Americas. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts 

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.ca.

This is a CBC podcast. Hey everyone, it's Jamie. Right now, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is serving 27 years under house arrest. And on Sunday, his son, Flavio, won the first round of that country's presidential elections. Jaird's wife and two more of his children were also voted into office. It is a stunning political turnaround. In part because the man who could be toppled by the return of the Bolsson's, and arrows, is a towering figure of leftist Latin American politics, Lula de Silva.

Under Lula's leadership, tens of millions of Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty, and he's currently serving his third term as president. And yet, at 80 years old, Lula is fighting for his political life against the son of the man who spent years working to undermine his political legacy. A runoff election is three weeks away. These early results in Brazil mirror a right-wing surge across the third. region, one that aligns with Donald Trump's so-called Dunrow Doctrine, where America has free reign to influence, coerce, and pick favorites to further U.S. interests.

We're joined today by Brian Winter, author of several books on Latin America, editor-in-chief of America's quarterly and vice president of policy at the Council of the Americas. Brian has been writing about Latin American politics for the better part of the last 25 years. Brian, it is such a pleasure to have you on Front Burner. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. So let's start with what happened at the beginning of the week on Sunday. Flavio Bolsonaro, Dyer Bolsonaro's eldest son, finished first in the presidential election with just over 47% of the vote.

What I have to say is that Lula is fighting for power. He has already contested seven presidential elections. He is concerned about power. I'm concerned about Brazil's future. I'm fighting for Brazil. Ahead of Lula, who took about four. It's time to show the true picture of Brazil because today is the Brazil we want. And because, as I understand it, no one reached the majority threshold, that sends the two of them into a runoff.

In a few weeks' time, this was the narrowest first-round gap in a Brazilian presidential election since the country's return to democracy. It just walked me through a little bit more what happened on that day. While it's true that Flavio Bolsonaro only won by two percentage points, The math greatly favors him as this moves toward a second round on October 25th. Basically because the other 8% or so of votes that went to other candidates, all of those other candidates are right of center. And so the bets being made in Brazil right now are that flavuble scenario will be the next president of Brazil, barring some sort of massive, unexpected comeback by Lula in this second round. What is the feeling in Brazil right now? Was this an outcome that people expected?

Surprise. And, you know, as an American who has followed Brazil for the better part of 20 years now, there are so many, frankly, bizarre parallels between what happened in the United States in 2024 with the return of Donald Trump and what we're seeing play out right now in Brazil. Just as the Trumps came back, despite January 6, despite what many saw as a bad response to the COVID pandemic, Brazil had, they didn't have January 6th, they had January 8th. And it happened two years and two days later. And in the Brazilian version, it was not just an invasion of the Congress. It was the Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court.

violent rioters battling with police, firing tear gas in the air as they vandalized government offices, all claiming Bolsonaro didn't really lose the election. They burned furniture, destroyed valuable artwork, and caused millions of dollars in damages. But despite all these things, voters have either time has passed or they have decided that Lula was worse. And so now the Bolsonaro,

are poised to come back in the same way that Donald Trump did, probably more powerful than before. I want to talk to you more about the Bolsonaro's in a little bit, but just Lula. Lula is this towering figure in Brazilian and Latin American politics. He and his party have occupied the presidency for roughly two decades of the last 26 years. The government can point to substantial improvements in things like poverty, unemployment, food insecurity. And yet, his party has now been routed by a movement whose figurehead sits in house arrest, as you were just saying, for trying to overthrow the Brazilian government. And just how is it that those achievements are failing to translate into a durable political coalition?

But yes, as you say, Lula, a towering figure, not just in Brazil, but throughout the global south, this is a leader who has been a luminary of the left. for almost 40 years now since he ran for president the first time back in 1989. He's a staunch proponent of indigenous and women's rights, environmental protection, and multilateralism. The former metal union leader who was born in abject poverty was once described by U.S. President Barack Obama as the world's most popular president. But that is part of the problem is the fact that he has been center stage for so long

he's now 80 years old, but it's not just a function of age here. I mean, look, the comparisons with Joe Biden, again, are inevitable. Lula has made them himself during the campaign, stressing that he is, you know, still vigorous and that he has avoided, you know, some of the problems, the obvious age that we saw in Joe Biden in the end of his campaign. In fact, Lula even regularly posted, footage of himself boxing and working out in the gym and an effort to prove that he still had this vigor. But I don't think the problem that Lula faced was so much a function of age. It was more that he had been at the center of Brazilian politics since the 1980s. And yes, it's true that his first two terms as president during the 2000s, when he was president from 2003 to

2010, that was a period of incredible progress for Brazil, where you saw some 35 million people in a country of about 200 million who came out of poverty and into the middle class. But, you know, he has not been able to repeat that kind of success during his third term, starting when he won the 2022 election, in large part because the global context was not the same. Those years during the 2000s were marked by very high demand for Brazil's commodities like iron ore, beef, and soy largely from China. This time around, the economy's been okay. Unemployment has been at record lows. Inflation is also relatively low by Brazilian standards at about 4%. But, you know, Lula himself raised those expectations when he beat

Jaird-Belsenaro back in 2022. He said, what we want is. is a Brazil where everyone can eat picagna. Pekanya, of course, is that wonderful Brazilian cut of beef. And in practice over the last four years, while, again, things were fine, but it was not a return to the kind of heady progress that Lula oversaw during his first two terms. And so what we're seeing from Brazil is an election that has been dominated by talk of affordability, again, apparently, with the United States and this feeling that we see from Brazilians in polls that they just don't feel like they're getting ahead. And so that's part of the reason that people are open now to the possibility of a return by the Bolsonaroos. And just say more for me how the Bolsonaro's, because

there's like four members of the family who are elected in other offices across the country, right? How did they seize on this moment? How did the right? How did the right generally, sees on this moment, what have they been doing to gain, you know, traction and momentum? Well, it is a sprawling family. As you mentioned, Jair Bolsonaro, who was president from 2019 to 2022, he was imprisoned last year on charges that he tried to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost. Now he's under house arrest, in part because of health reasons. Then you have the oldest son, Flavio, senator who has been the presidential candidate now on the verge of winning. Who stands for free market economics, conservative family values, and closer ties to Washington.

And there is also Jair's wife, the former first lady, Flavio's stepmother, who is younger than Flavio is by one year, who is an important figure in her own right, very popular amongst the growing evangelical Christian community in Brazil and two other politically active brothers. And I think the best explanation I can provide for why they are now on the verge of this comeback is, one, the passage of time. You know, some of their, some of the family's sins, so to speak, during the first term have now kind of passed into memory amongst most Brazilians. But the other really important point is this is a younger generation. And Flavio has been able to present himself as more moderate than his father. He's also younger.

I mean, look, he is a 45-year-old. senator. And that makes him 35 years younger than Lula. And this generational difference has also played out in this campaign. We've seen it in some of the polling numbers where people are eager for change. And they think that Flavio is different enough from the dad that people are at least willing to give him a chance. Isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers.

You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.ca.com. When you choose Athabasca University's online MBA program, you'll get more. Experience more flexibility so you can pursue your degree while balancing work and family. The AU Online MBA is designed to fit individual schedules so you can successfully complete the program

from home, work, or even while traveling. You don't need to leave work for a month, a year, or even every second Friday. Choose up more flexible MBA and get more out of your education. Learn how at atabascau.cu.cau.cau.ca.com slash flexible MBA. I want to broaden this out a little bit with you, for a generation really political commentators touted a so-called pink tide across the Americas, a reference to a period in which, like, left-wing leaders went power across Latin America, leaders hostile to American power, the Chavez program in Venezuela, Lula, as we've been talking about in Brazil, Morales and Bolivia, Petro and Colombia, Chile. In the last few years, there does seem to have been an incredible lurch right word, right? The introduction of much more Trump-friendly and allied leaders everywhere from Argentina to El Salvador, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, and then, of course, the American operation in Venezuela that removed an adversary in Maduro, and there's now a far-friendlyer government in place there. But what explains this realignment to you across Latin America? Let's put some numbers on it. Of the last 16 presidential elections

in Latin America that were Democratic, right or center-right candidates have won 13 of them. So this really is a significant conservative shift similar, as you know, to what we saw in Latin America during the 2000s when it was left of center leaders that took office. And it's interesting, you know, these are leaders that are often aligned with President Trump. Some have even called it, called it an orange wave with a, you know, reference to President Trump's. His tan, I guess. Maybe his tan, maybe his hair. Yeah. But oftentimes, if you look into the polling data,

President Trump is not popular in these countries. What people are really voting for, above all, is a tougher approach against organized crime. That is the number one issue for voters, according to polls, in almost every country in the region right now. From Mexico, down through Colombia, Costa Rica, into Chile, and yes, Brazil.

And it's true that organized crime is not a new issue in Latin America, but it has in some respects grown worse over the last 10 years or so. And the Bolsonaro family is just one of these groups that has promised a tougher approach to this. I'd say quickly two other factors. One has been the growth of evangelical Christian communities in several countries, not all, but this trend has been particularly pronounced in Brazil where 7% of the population was evangelical in the 1980s. Today, that number is close to 30%.

Wow. And then the other big thing that has nudged some voters right has been the collapse of Venezuela over the last 10 years or so, which really discredited that brand of leftist policy in the minds of many voters. I want to be clear, these have still been really close elections. Colombia, Peru, in particular, were decided by less than 1% of the vote. It's not a title wave toward the right, but in practice, that's what we've seen. Conservative governments that have been elected that are aligned with President Trump, even if people don't necessarily love him, but especially on security, because that's the issue that people really want to see addressed in their lives.

I was wondering if you could tell me more about the evangelical Christian stuff, right? So in Brazil, the role of faith in the church is really this cornerstone of life. In the 1970s, Brazil was more than 90% Catholic, but when last measured in 2022, that number had gone down to 56%. And as you explained, there's like this meteoric rise of evangelical Christianity in the country. even in this election, Bolsonaro appeared to handedly win the more evangelical districts. Well, Lula won the districts where less than 15% of the population was evangelical. Say more for me about the Catholic and evangelical divide and how this has come to inform or change the politics of the country. Well, it's one of the biggest divides in Brazilian politics.

As you know, you cannot understand the rise of the Bolsonaro's without understanding. what's been happening in the evangelical Christian community over the last 10, 20, 30 years. These are churches, mega-churches that are very similar to what we have in the United States. I'm originally from Dallas, Texas, the home of evangelical Christianity, if you will, in the United States. And so a lot of what's been happening in Brazil is very familiar to me. I want to pause here and just say that, you know, for the first half of my career, as an American journalist and now analyst following Brazil. I was not always seeing these parallels between our countries. And in fact, I resisted them somewhat. Brazil, a big complex nation,

4,000 miles away from the United States, there's no natural reason to believe that these countries would be on such parallel tracks in their politics. But it has been almost eerie over the last 10 years, how Brazil almost feels like the same story but on a two-year delay with just a few differences. And the reason for that, one of the reasons for that, has been this religious story and also the very real links that exist between some of these megachurches in places like Texas or Iowa and churches in Brazil, where evangelical pastors have have been very explicit about telling their flocks who they think that they should vote for. It has also led to the rise of similar kind of what we call here in the States the culture wars,

issues like abortion and so-called gender ideology that have made their way to the forefront. Issues that when I started my career in Brazil in the 2000s didn't appear to be on their radar. So, you know, that has clearly been a major source of strength for the Bolsonaro's. Lula has tried to reach out to the evangelicals, but he, you know, he's a talented enough politician to know that that's a community that he needs to reach. But again, whether it's a function of age or kind of his own spirituality, he has not been able to speak in a way that those communities have. found convincing. Earlier this year, Germany's state broadcaster published some reporting that alleged that the CIA brought evangelicals to Latin America and that the CIA sent conservative Pentecostal churches

to counter Catholic trends. It considered communists. I just, I wonder what you make, what you make of that theory. And on the ground, is there a sense that the proliferation of the evangelical church has been organic? I cannot speak to. how or why the evangelical churches first began to arrive in Brazil. But I think that their success, you know, and this is an issue where I'm not personally a religious person, but it's something that I've tried to study in order to understand today's Brazil. One story has been the well-documented troubles of the Catholic Church globally over the last 20 years or so. Those have had certainly consequences. in Brazil, which even now today has the world's largest population of Roman Catholics by

population. The other interesting dynamic is, you know, the evangelical churches have often espoused a language of self-empowerment and self-enrichment that has resonated in Brazil, I think, especially in the Latin American context. It's changed so much. Lula's rise in politics in the 1970s and 1980s came because he was a trade union leader. That's Lula's roots. In the Brazil of that era, unions were relatively important. Even in the 2000s, when I first started following Brazil, the maximum aspiration of so many Brazilians was to have a formal job, what they call in Brazil, Cartera Assinaida, literally like a little book that Brazilians. carry that has, typically, you know, a couple decades ago, your employer would write down in your

little book what your job was. And that was a source of pride for so many families to have one of those because it came with benefits, but also a certain cultural currency in Brazil. Today, according to polling, almost two-thirds of Brazilians would rather be self-employed. and that has represented huge challenges for Lula and his workers' party and probably reflects this do it yourself, make yourself rich because that's what God wants agenda that you hear so much from these evangelical churches. So that's another area where you kind of have this transversality between the religious, the economic, and the political in ways.

that have favored the Bolsonaro family. I want to ask you squarely about direct American influence here. Like for much of modern history in Latin America, Washington treated the hemisphere as a sphere of privileged American influence, most famously through the Monroe Doctrine, which was used to, of course, oversee dozens and dozens of coups and campaigns of intervention across the 19th and 20th century. Trump now talks about the Don Roe doctrine,

reviving that hemispheric logic. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere, will never be questioned again. It won't happen. There's been all kinds of allegations lately about American meddling in the Brazilian elections.

I know the Attorney General requested an inquiry opened up about this, Brazil's Attorney General. Just what do you make of this nexus between the Monroe Doctrine, alleged American meddling in? the elections and the expression of American power across Latin America today. Well, there's no doubt that the Trump administration has tried to actively intervene in this election. They very openly and explicitly did so in July of 2025 when President Trump announced a 50% tariff on Brazil

and linked it explicitly to what he called legal persecution of the Bolshe. In his letter announcing the tariffs, Trump accused Lula's government of persecuting former President Xiobosanaro, his ally, and demanded the witch hunt stop. This tactic backfired instead of helping the Bolsonaro family, it hurt them. Protesters in Sao Paulo burning the American flag, telling U.S. President Donald Trump to stop meddling in Brazilian affairs. Lula's polling numbers went up at the time. Many observers believe that the legal case against Jaira Bolsino that ultimately sent him to prison probably even accelerated rather than, you know, being halted as as President Trump wanted.

By late 2025, President Trump had ruled back that tariff. Now we've seen kind of through other means an increased tariff so far in 2026. But the bottom line is there's no doubt that Washington has a preference for the Bolsonaro's in this election and they've been willing to take concrete steps in order to try to help him. And this is an approach that, you know, look, for me, having spent the last 25 years following Latin American politics, you know, the United States for the last 30 years or so really did not take this kind of approach. It was more hands-off, more kind of a peer-to-peer relationship with these countries. The Monroe Doctrine was hardly mentioned at all during most of those years. In fact, you had officials in the Obama administration who explicitly said those days are over. But now President Trump has made very clear that the Monroe Doctrine is back.

Not just the Monroe Doctrine, which, to get into the weeds a little bit here, it really specifically references that foreign i.e. non-hemispheric powers should not have a presence or should not be able to interfere in the region. No China. No China back in the 20th century, no Soviet Union. But there's another element traditionally associated with Theodore Roosevelt that the United States has the right to intervene. And that's, we've certainly seen a more active U.S. with the capture of Nicolas Maduro earlier this year with the boat strikes that we've now seen in the eastern Pacific and in the Caribbean. It really is in many ways turning back the clock to the way the U.S. operated in Latin America and the Caribbean a hundred years ago. It's an approach that I had not personally seen throughout most of my career. You know, as we talk about this right-word lurch in the region, I've been thinking about Claudia Scheinbaum, the president of Mexico, really the last leftist leader standing.

She watched the U.S. take Maduro under the cover of night. She watched Maduro's seconding command become friendly to U.S. interests. She's seen the U.S. invest heavily in a generation of cooperative leaders. What do you think she's thinking today? And what are some of the lessons for Shinebom's Mexico? I think Claudia Shanebaum has the most challenging job in Latin America. She's not alone. Don't forget, Yamandu Orsi in Uruguay is also in office.

He's left of center. But that's a small country. You know, Uruguay is 3 million people. But look, President Shanebaum has done a remarkable job. of balancing these pressures. She has maintained her independence, and I have to say a certain dignity in dealing with President Trump. She has made clear what her red lines are, while at the same time attending to the U.S. demands on security, on managing or helping manage the border, making it less porous for both drugs and immigrants. And the results have been clear. Mexico is still a

country with enormous security challenges, but homicides are down more than 40 percent, according to official figures, since President Seymomb took office. Of course, as President Trump is always touting the irregular migration across the border has also dived by some counts 80, percent or more. And as a result, she's been able to carve out a productive relationship with President Trump. I wouldn't say a friendly one, but certainly a productive one, while also remaining popular at home. That's, gosh, it's been hard for her. She's shown tremendous political skill, in part because her predecessor, who was very popular and her political godfather in many ways, had a very different, much more hands-off approach to managing this drug violence that we have seen in Mexico for many years.

You've written that one of the great ironies of this moment is that Trump's return could actually undermine this right-word shift that we're seeing in the region because nationalism can kick in when Washington pushes too hard. If Flavio Bolsonaro is to win, as we've talked about, it is a disqualmie. is likely. Is the U.S. President actually consolidating a new political order in the Americas or potentially provoking the backlash that eventually breaks it apart? Oh, it could be both. I mean, in the short term, there's no doubt that what we're seeing is a conservative shift that is driven, again, as I've said, mostly by internal security concerns more than an explicit desire by voters in places like Colombia, Peru, or Brazil to align themselves with President Trump. That's really, that's not it. But it is a consequence. And so you already see a group of

leaders who are cooperating with each other on security under this initiative, the so-called shield of the Americas. It has ballooned from an anti-drugging crime agreement to an economic, military, and diplomatic partnership. Which Flavio Bolsonaro would also be very likely to join, should he win. He's also explicitly hinted at withdrawing Brazil from Bricks. Brazil is going to be the battleground where the future of the hemisphere will be fought because Brazil is America's solution to break independence on China for critical minerals, especially rare earth elements.

And so the possibility for cooperation on security issues in particular is very present. Also in areas like infrastructure and particularly trade. But look, history also tells us that when the U.S. takes a heavy hand in Latin America, there is always a backlash. Sometimes it takes years. And that's what we saw 100 years ago. But you can draw a direct line between the U.S. interventions of the 1910s and 1920s in places like Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere to the rise of figures like Fidel Castro. Juan Perron, who ended up antagonizing the United States and its commercial interests for decades afterward. People don't like it when outsiders intervene in their politics. It's also true that,

you know, while I certainly believe that there is a possibility that this right-wing shift is here to stay in Latin America, at least for a couple of years, for all the reasons that I've cited, if these governments fail to deliver results on the economy and on security, then, you know, in another year or two, we may be talking about a shift to the left or a shift in a different direction. I, you know, it's all, it's unclear yet whether this is something that is a pendulum swinging back and forth or whether it's a more long-lasting change in Latin American politics. I think it's the latter, but these presidents that we're now seeing take office will have to deliver in order for that to be true. Brian, this is so interesting. Thank you so much for this. Always a pleasure. Thank you. All right. That is all for today.

Front burner was produced this week by Joytha Shen Gupta, Kevin Sexton, Sam McNulty, Mitchell Stewart, Matthew Almaha, Ali Jains, and McKenzie Cameron. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph. Joseph Shabbison. Our senior producer is Imogen Birchert. And our executive producer is Nick McKay Blokos. I'm J.B. Pozzo. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you all next week.