Trump's tariffs are a boon for Brazil and Mexico's left-wing leaders
Two new polls show that Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's popularity has rebounded for the first time this year since Trump announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods starting Aug.1.
A July 16 Quaest poll shows 43% of Brazilians approve of Lula's government, up from 40% in May. Lula's popularity began to rebound after Trump announced his first round of tariff threats in March.
A separate poll by Atlas/Bloomberg released last week shows 49.7% of Brazilians approve of Lula's job performance, a 2.4-point increase since June.
'The Trump tariffs have helped Lula,' Anthony Pereira, a Brazil expert at Florida International University, told me. 'It makes him look as he's defending sovereignty. And among the educated middle class, people feel he's taking the right position.'
It's too early to say whether Lula's poll surge will last long enough to make him a viable candidate for a 2026 re-election run, but U.S. tariffs have given him some breathing room.
Until recently, few believed Lula would run in next year's election. Brazil's economy is expected to grow just 2.3% this year, down from 3.4% last year, according to the International Monetary Fund. That's far below Brazil's economic expansion during the commodity boom of Lula's previous governments in the early 2000s.
Now, there is growing speculation that Lula will ride a wave of nationalist sentiment into a re-election bid.
'This looks like a lighter version of what happened in Canada and Australia, where a 'Trump effect' helped center-left parties come from behind and win,' Pereira says.
Trump's July 9 letter threatening more tariffs on Brazil criticized the Brazilian justice system for prosecuting his close ally, former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian leader faces charges of plotting a coup to block Lula's 2022 election victory.
Many Brazilians saw Trump's use of tariff threats to demand Bolsonaro's exoneration as a gross interference in their country's internal affairs. Lula said, 'Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage.'
According to the latest Quaest poll, 72% of Brazilians said Trump was wrong in linking his tariffs to the charges against Bolsonaro. Only 19% said the U.S. president was right.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum has faced an increasingly stagnant economy and backlash over a controversial judicial reform. But Trump's tariff threats on Mexican goods have given her new political oxygen.
Since Trump's first 25% tariff threat to Mexico in March, accusing Mexico of failing to stop migrants and fentanyl at the border, Sheinbaum's poll numbers have stayed strong, holding near 70% despite worsening economic news.
Mexico's economy is expected to grow a paltry 0.1% this year — almost nothing. And Sheinbaum's push for the judicial reform she inherited has dangerously weakened the judiciary's independence and Mexico's democracy.
But today, much of the criticism over Sheinbaum's performance has been drowned out by headlines about Trump's tariffs.
Even conservative business leaders and journalists have praised Sheinbaum's firm but calm response to Trump's bullying. 'Mexico must be respected,' she has repeatedly said, urging the Trump team to negotiate a mutually beneficial tariff deal.
In both Brazil and Mexico, many centrist and right-of-center opposition leaders say, rightly, that instead of attacking America's neighbors and trade partners, Trump should focus on his true rival: China.
Even some hard-line former top Trump aides agree that the United States should embrace economic integration with Latin America to better compete with China rather than engaging in trade wars with the region.
'The main problem in today's international trade is China,' Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton told me.
If Trump had united with other nations victimized by China's theft of intellectual property and protectionism, 'we would have much greater chance at affecting China's behavior than for the U.S. to declare a trade war against everybody,' Bolton told me.
As for Mexico and Brazil, Bolton said Washington should help U.S. manufacturers move factories to Latin America, which would be a win-win for the entire hemisphere. But unfortunately, Trump doesn't get it, and his trade war 'will cause everybody, including the United States, a lot of unnecessary pain,' Bolton said.
I agree. Trump's tariff threats on Brazilian and Mexico won't just make tomatoes, coffee and cars pricier for Americans, but will hand Latin America's populists a political lifeline. Ironically, an American president who claims to be a champion of the fight against the left may be fueling its revival south of the border.
Don't miss the 'Oppenheimer Presenta' TV show on Sundays at 9 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Blog: andresoppenheimer.com
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