In a recent development, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry refused visa requests from two officials of the United States State Department who planned to visit the country the following week. This decision marks another chapter in the growing political tensions between the two nations.
The situation came into the limelight following The Washington Post’s report, which quoted Brazilian authorities. The officials in question, Riley M. Barnes, an assistant secretary, and Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant, reportedly aimed to scrutinize the integrity of Brazil’s forthcoming October elections.
According to a spokesperson for Brazil’s foreign affairs office, Barnes and Samson made their visa applications on July 20, but those applications were rejected last Friday.
The spokesperson, however, did not provide an explanation for why the visas were denied.
This incident occurs against the backdrop of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign for reelection. He is set to challenge Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who, along with his family, has multiple connections with the former Trump administration.
Sen. Bolsonaro and his brother, Eduardo, visited US officials in Washington, including US President Trump, in late May.
Shortly afterward, the Trump administration classified Brazil’s biggest drug-trafficking groups — First Command Capital and Red Command — as foreign terrorist organizations, a move Lula opposes.
The Trump administration also imposed an up to 37.5% tariff hike on thousands of Brazilian exports, which came into force Friday.
The US government claims the South American nation has unfair competition practices and fails to stop forced labor practices — both accusations rejected by the Lula administration as an attempt to sway the election to Sen. Bolsonaro.
The US State Department said Barnes and Samson planned to go to Brasilia July 27-30 to meet government officials, religious leaders and others about “election integrity,” religious freedom and freedom of expression.
The department, in response to a query from The Associated Press, called it a routine visit and said that “any insinuation of a ‘ploy’ to undermine a democratic nation’s election is a baseless lie.”
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has for years fed concerns about the country’s electronic voting system, without providing any evidence for his claims.
He is now serving a 27-year prison sentence at home for an attempted coup. He has long insisted that the machines, used for a quarter-century, are prone to fraud.
His son, Sen. Bolsonaro, has recently repeated some of these claims, although he steered clear of those on Saturday when his Liberal Party confirmed him as a presidential candidate in Sao Paulo.