00:00To continue on topic on the important election day that Brazil is going to be going to the polls next
00:05Sunday,
00:05let's now welcome to our program Marco Fernandes, PhD in Social Psychology and a researcher at the Tri-Continental Institute.
00:13Welcome, Marco, to From the South.
00:18Hello, Luis. Thanks for having me here.
00:20It's a pleasure.
00:21Marco, before we go to the regional and international impact that this election can have in Brazil,
00:26what is your analysis on the current geopolitical context in Brazil that Brazilians are going to the polls next Sunday?
00:35This is just the most internationalized elections in Brazil ever in history.
00:40Of course, any election in Brazil, there is an importance for the whole region and also for the whole world
00:46because Brazil is one of the major countries, major economies and major political actor.
00:53But right now, with the stage of geopolitics that we are watching, with the aggressiveness of the U.S.,
01:02both in the region but also in Western Asia, for instance,
01:05I think this is, we could say that it's not a dispute between Lula and Bolsonaro,
01:11but it's actually a dispute between Lula and Trump, or at least a dispute between Lula and Marco Rubio on
01:18Sunday.
01:19Because right now, of course, we know that Brazil and Mexico are the only two major countries in Latin America
01:25that are not really controlled by the United States.
01:29And there is a huge dispute over some natural resources going on in the whole planet.
01:37And, of course, Brazil is one of the key countries for that.
01:42I'll give you just two examples.
01:44First of all, the oil.
01:45Everybody knows, I mean, what's going on now in Western Asia, in Iran,
01:50and everything related to the aggressiveness of the U.S. regarding the search for oil.
01:58We're watching now what's happening in Venezuela, the kidnapping of the President Maduro, etc.
02:04And Brazil just found a new source of oil in the so-called equatorial margin in the north of the
02:13country,
02:13close to the Amazon River, which might make Brazil the fifth largest producer of oil in the planet.
02:22Brazil right now is the seventh major producer.
02:25But the potential of this new fine is from 10 to 30 billion barrel of oil in the region.
02:35So Brazil can be a major player.
02:37And second example is the rare earth, which now everybody talks about,
02:42because all the electronics and all the key military devices and weapons need rare earth.
02:50And we know that China controls the market, controls 90% of the refined,
02:55and is the major global reserve of rare earth.
02:59U.S., for instance, is only 2% of the reserve.
03:03China has more than 40%.
03:04But guess what?
03:05Brazil is the second largest reserve of rare earth in the planet.
03:09There's around 23% of the reserves that are known in the planet.
03:15So imagine if Bolsonaro wins, which means if Trump wins the elections in Brazil,
03:23these resources will be at disposal of the United States.
03:28And this would be terrible not only for Brazil, but for the rural region and for the whole global south.
03:34And I'm not talking about theory because a few weeks ago there was a leak of an email from Marco
03:41Rubio
03:42to Flávio Bolsonaro, where actually Marco Rubio is thanking Bolsonaro for saying that
03:52or for promising that if Bolsonaro wins, the so-called transition government,
03:59which is an important institution that is right after the elections,
04:03if it's a different candidate wins election, not a presidential candidate, the current president,
04:11there is a transition government.
04:13So they have to make all the coordination between the ministries, etc.
04:18And in this email, Rubio said,
04:21thanks, Bolsonaro, for saying, for promising that the Brazilian transitional government
04:27will be at the disposal of the White House in case of you winning the election.
04:35So this is actually what's going to happen in Brazil.
04:38And also, just to find the last thing, there's already lots of denouncements in Brazil
04:46about how much U.S. is interfering in the election, also in the social media, as we expected.
04:53Like, there's already some denounces about Meta and X blocking some content from Lula.
05:00And so, I mean, we should expect a very difficult, very tight election
05:06with a lot of intervention from the United States, not only on Sunday,
05:12but, I mean, if we confirm the runoff in three weeks,
05:16the next three weeks would be a massive attack from the United States against Lula
05:21and everything that Lula represents.
05:25Brazil, Marcos, is one of the founding members, we can say, of the BRICS.
05:30It's right there, the beginning letter, the B for Brazil.
05:33So, we know BRICS represents a more multilateral system,
05:37a multilateral world order that goes completely against with the U.S. hegemonic intention.
05:43So, how could the electoral results, depending who wins, affect Brazil's role within BRICS?
05:51It's the same. I mean, it's interesting because in 2018, when Bolsonaro, the father,
05:57won the election, there was not actually a discussion about Brazil leaving BRICS.
06:03It's true that actually Bolsonaro didn't do anything for BRICS or for moving towards
06:12an important position of Brazilian BRICS.
06:16So, Brazil was stuck in BRICS between 2018 and 2022, but Bolsonaro didn't want to leave formally BRICS.
06:24But, right now, with the level of attacks that Trump has been doing against BRICS
06:32and threatening BRICS countries of more tariffs, if they do something about the dollar,
06:37if they move to an international payment system, etc.,
06:40because, after all, even Trump recognized before his election that for the United States to lose
06:46the hegemony of the dollar would be the equivalent of losing a third world war.
06:51So, that's why Trump is being so vocal and so aggressive against BRICS.
06:57And I should say that if Bolsonaro wins, I think most likely Brazil will quit BRICS.
07:04And this would be a major blow to BRICS because, first of all,
07:07this would mean that no Latin American countries would be a member of BRICS.
07:11Right now, Brazil is the only member of BRICS.
07:14We have two partners at Bolivia and Cuba, but Brazil is only the only member.
07:20So, it would be no members from Latin America.
07:23And I would say that, again, losing Brazil in the international geopolitics,
07:29in the international stage, because Bolsonaro will be 100% subservient to the White House,
07:35it would be a major tragedy not only for Latin America,
07:39but the whole global south will lose.
07:41BRICS will lose.
07:43Also, African countries will lose because one of the things that Lula has been trying to rebuild
07:49his policies for Africa from the first and the second term between 2003 and 2010,
07:59of course, they will be raised from the Brazilian foreign policy.
08:05So, I would say that, again, if Lula wins, lose, sorry, this election,
08:13that would be a major blow for the whole global south and for the country will be a tragedy.
08:20And just the last thing, it's actually a little bit frustrating.
08:25I would say that after everything that happened, the four years of Bolsonaro,
08:31which meant the devastation of the state, we still have almost 50% of the people,
08:36or at least 40% of the people, that might vote for Bolsonaro again.
08:40I think this also brings us to a more important discussion about some of the limits of the
08:47liberal democracy in Brazil and the whole Latin America and how much U.S. has so much power to
08:55intervene in the elections, either by social media, either by actually raising and projecting candidates
09:06that are actually agents of the United States.
09:09Like now we have a president in Colombia, for instance, he's an American citizen.
09:14I mean, it's absolutely insane to think that American citizen now is running Colombia.
09:19But I think we should have a proper discussion, no matter what the results of this election.
09:26But we need to create more, some mechanism of defense against United States intervention
09:33in different levels that they have.
09:36I mean, what happened in Brazil with the car wash operation, how much they actually created
09:41Sergio Moro, the judge, and they were able to impeach Dilma Rousseff to put the Lula in jail.
09:47And now it's documented that was actually an operation ran by the Department of Justice and the FBI.
09:54So this kind of interventions, we need to rediscuss the democracy in Latin America,
10:02and we need mechanisms to defend against this kind of interventions from the White House.
10:07Very interesting points you were making.
10:09And that's all we have time for, unfortunately, Marcos.
10:11Thank you for being with us here in From the South for this important analysis.
10:16Have me here.
10:18Thank you, Marcos.
10:19Let's now continue with other topics as we continue to inform what is happening around the world.
10:43The United States completed the withdrawal of its military troops from Iraq after 23 years of foreign intervention.
10:50The Iraqi Ministry of Defense confirmed the end of U.S. operations and highlighted the nation's capabilities
10:55to protect the country's sovereignty and security.
10:58The process was in line with the joint statement signed in September 2024 between Washington and Baghdad.
11:06According to the U.S. administration, this was in response to national security interests.
11:10The Pentagon says it will provide targeted intelligence support.
11:14Regional analysts emphasize that true national security requires full sovereignty and an end to foreign military oversight.
11:20The departure marks a pivotal shift for Iraq as popular forces and state institutions face the task of securing national
11:27borders
11:28without external interference.
11:36This information, we have come to the end of this news brief.
11:38Remember, you can find these and many other stories on our website at telestoryenglish.net.
11:42So join us on social media.
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11:47For Telestory English, I'm Luis Alberto Matos.
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