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Explaining Brazil

The Brazilian Report

News from Brazil, by The Brazilian Report — an independent media outlet uniquely positioned to offer an insider’s view of current affairs in Brazil.

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Yesterday · 41 min
Can Brazil's Supreme Court survive an election?
For years, Brazil's Supreme Court picked fights with Congress and the presidency. This month it turned on itself. On September 15, the full court sat for more than seven hours to answer a question it has dodged for 130 years, and walked away without an answer. Gustavo Ribeiro is joined by Brown University historian James Green to unpack what happened inside that session, why it looked more like a schoolyard brawl than the country's highest court, and how a scandal involving a jailed banker and a BRL 130 million contract has swallowed the entire campaign three weeks before Brazilians go to the polls. They also dig into whether the polls are missing a shy Bolsonaro vote, why one far-right candidate is now accusing Flávio Bolsonaro of being bankrolled from Washington, and what happens if Lula wins by a hair and Trump refuses to recognize the result.
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September 9 · 36 min
Civil war at the Brazilian Supreme Court
Brazil's Supreme Court is facing what may be the worst crisis in its history. Justice André Mendonça unsealed the Banco Master investigation, exposing messages between the bank's former CEO and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Now two factions of the court are openly at war, less than a month before the first round of the presidential election. Gustavo Ribeiro and James Green break down how the scandal reached every corner of the political spectrum, why Brazilians are left choosing between impunity and disregard for due process, and whether this fight could tip a race that polls call a toss-up.
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September 1 · 38 min
The first surprise of the 2016 election
Two polls released Monday shook the political establishment. Augusto Cury, of the small Avante party, took third place in both: 11% in Nexus's survey, 7.8% in Atlas Intel's. The numbers force rivals and analysts to take Cury seriously for the first time since he entered the race. His rise followed two bursts of exposure: the Aug. 23 presidential debate, which Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula, and Romeu Zema all skipped, and last week's Jornal Nacional interview. His asset appears to be a rhetoric that refuses polarization, suggesting the third way's failure to gain traction has been a problem of supply rather than demand. The Brazilian Report's editor-in-chief, Gustavo Ribeiro, and James Green, the Brown University historian who chairs the Brazil Office Alliance, discussed what Cury's rise means for the race on our latest joint podcast.
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August 20 · 43 min
What's wrong with the Brazilian Congress
Brazil's 2026 campaign is officially underway, and almost all the attention will be on the presidential race. That's a problem, because power in Brazil is increasingly won and lost in Congress — where the budget is controlled and where any president's agenda lives or dies. Gustavo Ribeiro and James Green are joined by political scientist Beatriz Rey, a researcher at the University of Lisbon, who recently coordinated a Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation policy paper with Sergio Fausto on how to fix the way Congress operates. Her argument isn't that Congress got too strong. Two decades of incremental change made the legislature a genuine co-policymaker, and that part is healthy. The trouble is that much of that strength was built through the back door: a Leaders' Council that met in restaurants and living rooms instead of the chamber, hybrid sessions designed for a pandemic that never went away, provisional decrees that expire because nobody bothers to vote, a speaker who can yank any bill out of committee, and informal working groups that now write entire bills with no paper trail and no obligation to reflect the party balance of the House.
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August 10 · 34 min
A visa, a snub, and a reopened wound
The US State Department revoked the visa of Brazil's ambassador to Washington and said the quiet part out loud: it is retaliation for Brasília withholding agrément from Trump's pick to serve as the ambassador to Brazil. Two months before the first round, that is not a protocol dispute. It is leverage. Gustavo Ribeiro is joined by James Green, professor at Brown University and chairman of the board of the Washington Brazil Office, to unpack the escalation and what it may be building toward — including the case that isolating Brazil lays the groundwork for questioning the October results. They also take stock of the rest of a rough week in the neighborhood: relations with Argentina downgraded to chargé d'affaires level after Javier Milei's insults delivered on Brazilian soil, and Lula's unforced error on Paraguay, which reopened the wound of the War of the Triple Alliance. On the same day the visa news broke, Marco Rubio was hosting Paraguay's vice president and signing a nuclear cooperation deal. Then to the campaign: Flávio Bolsonaro's running mate, why no major party wants to join either ticket, and how the public campaign fund and TV ad rules quietly favor the incumbent.
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August 4 · 27 min
Brazilian trade: Life after Washington
The US now takes less than 10% of Brazil's exports — the smallest share in decades — and Washington's tariff wall is accelerating a realignment that was already underway. Gustavo Ribeiro speaks with trade consultant Welber Barral, a former Brazilian foreign trade secretary (2007-11), about what the Section 301 tariffs are doing to exporters on the ground, why more than 30 rounds of talks produced nothing, and why Brasília will not sign the deal Washington handed Argentina. They also discuss Brazil's reciprocity law, the lobbying campaign to suspend US patents, and whether an election year makes retaliation more likely or less likely.
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July 24 · 40 min
An imported playbook for Brazil's elections
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro used his turn at Debating Brazil — an event series in which Brazilian presidential candidates present their vision of the country to foreign ambassadors — to revive discredited claims about electronic voting fraud and to promise close alignment with Washington.Gustavo Ribeiro and James Green examine what the Brazilian press overlooked: a foreign policy doctrine that never rises beyond an outline, an unprompted misstep on Taiwan and an open appeal for American support.Also this week: the Brazil Office Alliance brings 16 social movements to the US Congress to press the case for nonintervention, the forced-labor rationale for new tariffs collapses under scrutiny, and new polling from Poder Data finds a sharp shift in Brazilian sentiment toward China. Send us your feedback Support the show
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July 13 · 46 min
Flávio Bolsonaro has a few problems to deal with
On this episode of Explaining Brazil, Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report, talks with James Green, a historian at Brown University, about the fracturing landscape of Brazil's 2026 presidential race. Much of the conversation turns on Flávio Bolsonaro, whose campaign has been undone largely by its own missteps. Once the front-runner, the senator is now locked in a public feud with his stepmother, Michelle Bolsonaro, that has cost him support among conservative and evangelical women. Ribeiro and Green examine how that rupture — compounded by his appeals for Washington to intervene against looming trade tariffs — has drained his political capital. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, meanwhile, is extending his lead by staying out of the fray. But the episode looks past the horse race to slower shifts underneath it. Send us your feedback Support the show
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June 2 · 41 min
Brazil's crime syndicates are now terrorist organizations
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated the Comando Vermelho (Red Command, or CV) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital, or PCC) as foreign terrorist organizations. The Brazilian Report's editor-in-chief, Gustavo Ribeiro, and the Brazil Office Alliance's president of the board, James Green, discuss the implications for Brazil. Send us your feedback Support the show
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May 8 · 52 min
Lula meets Trump in Washington
Editor-in-chief Gustavo Ribeiro sat down with historian James N. Green to unpack Lula's recent meeting with Donald Trump. While the visit yielded no concrete trade breakthroughs, it has been cast as a diplomatic victory, bolstering Lula's domestic standing against far-right rivals. The discussion also addresses political issues at home: the rejection of a Supreme Court nominee and the steady drift of legislative power toward a more conservative Congress. Send us your feedback Support the show
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April 23 · 48 min
Trouble ahead for Brazil-US relations?
What role will the United States play in Brazil's high-stakes 2026 elections? Join editor-in-chief Gustavo Ribeiro and historian James N. Green of the Brazil Office Alliance as they unpack the escalating tensions and potential for US interference in Brazil's upcoming presidential race Send us your feedback Support the show
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March 19 · 8 min
Time to investigate Brazil's Supreme Court justices? (preview)
Amid deepening polarization and the judiciary’s growing role in the country’s political life, Brazil’s Supreme Court has become accustomed to being rated poorly by a significant share of the population. In recent years, most of that opposition has come from the far right, which saw the court as a barrier to its onslaught on democracy — including the attempted coup following the 2022 election. The problem now is that the dissatisfaction has become widespread — and is being driven precisely by a justice who was central to preserving democracy during the coup attempt saga: Alexandre de Moraes. According to polling institute Quaest, 66% of Brazilians said that, come October’s elections, they would consider voting for Senate candidates who promise to seek the impeachment of Supreme Court justices. That survey was conducted amid the ongoing Banco Master scandal, which has raised corruption suspicions involving a wide range of Brazilian authorities across all branches of government, particularly members of the judiciary and right-wing politicians. Send us your feedback Support the show
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March 5 · 12 min
Brazil's water leverage. And its fault lines (preview)
Humanity has entered what scientists are calling an “era of water bankruptcy.” According to the United Nations University, many critical water systems around the world are so overused — through depletion, overallocation, land and soil degradation, deforestation, and pollution, all compounded by climate change — that they can no longer be restored. At the same time, global warming and the spread of artificial intelligence promise to dramatically increase demand for water and clean energy across a wide range of countries.In this complex scenario, Brazil is in a privileged position, being home to more than 12 percent of the world’s fresh water, and an electricity matrix that is more than 55 percent hydropower-based. But does an abundance of river basins truly translate into water security?As it stands, Brazil is in a relatively comfortable position to ensure water supply for homes, industries, and crops, as well as the functioning of its hydropower plants. Water availability is also a crucial asset for the country on the international stage. When agribusiness exports dozens of millions of tons of soy each year, it is also indirectly exporting the water used in that process. Half of the water consumed in Brazil goes to irrigation.When federal and local governments court foreign investment to host data centers, they are offering the water used in power generation and in the cooling systems those facilities require. Last week, the lower house even approved a bill granting tax incentives to the sector. The text will still be voted on in the Senate.But experts warn of risks of chronic water shortages in several parts of Brazil over the coming decades, considering projections of economic and demographic growth, as well as the effects of climate change. Send us your feedback Support the show
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February 27 · 10 min
An indigenous victory against Cargill on the Tapajós River (preview)
Advances in oil exploration and the construction of railways and highways in recent years have shown that, when large infrastructure projects clash with matters of Amazon preservation, the Brazilian government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tends to favor the former. Some call this progress; others see it as ultimately self-defeating in the face of the ongoing climate emergency. But this week, the usual script of Brazilian developmentalism trumping environmentalism was turned on its head, and on the Amazonian Tapajós River in Pará state, environmentalist forces prevailed. Send us your feedback Support the show
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February 13 · 6 min
Brazilian stocks’ record run (preview)
190,000 points. After a string of record highs that have been piling up since mid-January, the Ibovespa — the benchmark index of São Paulo’s stock exchange, the B3 — surpassed this historic threshold during Wednesday, February 11, closing the day just shy of it.Financial trading volume totaled BRL 38.6 billion, or about USD 7.7 billion. With this result, and only six weeks into the year, Ibovespa has already posted gains of over 18% in 2026.To give a sense of the scale, stock exchange data on foreign investor flows show a net inflow of BRL 26.3 billion in January alone — exceeding the surplus recorded for the entire year of 2025. Send us your feedback Support the show
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February 5 · 11 min
Brasília enters an election year on edge (preview)
Brasília is back to work — and the new legislative year has opened with all the familiar rituals: lofty speeches about stability, institutional balance, and dialogue, plus promises of an ambitious agenda ahead. But this is no ordinary year. Brazil is heading into a high-stakes election in October. Voters will choose a president, renew the entire House, elect two-thirds of the Senate, pick 27 governors, and decide the fate of hundreds of state legislators. From now on, everything in Brasília will be filtered through the election calendar — what Congress dares to vote on, what the government is willing to push forward, and even how and when Supreme Court justices make their moves. And looming over all of it is a growing source of anxiety. Hovering above the capital is the Banco Master case — an investigation lawmakers privately describe as unpredictable, corrosive, and potentially explosive. We touched on it last week, but its shadow is only getting longer. Since Operation Car Wash erupted in 2014, Congress has not entered an election year under such a serious risk of being overwhelmed by corruption allegations — the kind that can torpedo campaigns, reshape alliances, and, in some cases, lead to criminal consequences. Send us your feedback Support the show
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January 29 · 10 min
Banco Master and the Supreme Court: After the glory came the crisis (preview)
As the saying goes, the calm comes before the storm. In Brazil’s Supreme Court, the current crisis came after a period of glory and renown. In September 2025, the Supreme Court made history and became a global reference. Breaking with Brazil’s long tradition of impunity for military interference in politics, the court analyzed a wealth of evidence and convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and top-ranking military officers for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 election. That same month, Edson Fachin took office as the Supreme Court Chief Justice and quickly expressed his desire to create a code of conduct for members of the top court. Apparent conflicts of interest involving justices are common — and preventing them is also a way to strengthen the rule of law. In December, however, the court was pulled into the swirling scandal involving Banco Master — a mid-sized lender that was liquidated amid suspicions of fraud involving billions of reais. The bank’s owner, Daniel Vorcaro, has ties to state governors, lawmakers, high-ranking executive personnel and justices, putting many people under suspicion across the political spectrum. Late last year, the press revealed that the wife of Justice Alexandre de Moraes had signed a three-year contract with Banco Master worth BRL 129 million (USD 25 million) to work as a lawyer for the bank. The contract's value raised eyebrows. Soon after, it became public that Justice Dias Toffoli, the rapporteur of the Master case, had recently traveled on a private jet to a football match with the lawyer of one of the bank’s former executives. That alone would already be inappropriate. But from there, the problems only piled up. Send us your feedback Support the show
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January 21 · 11 min
How the Mercosur-EU deal impacts Brazilian firms beyond exports (preview)
Amid a global context of eroding multilateralism and rising US trade wars, Mercosur and the European Union are trying to create a shared market for more than 700 million people. The proposed free trade zone for goods and services encompasses 27 European countries, plus Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on the other side of the Atlantic, with Bolivia in the process of joining as well. Combined, the economies involved in the deal make up for approximately 20% of global GDP. The deal was finally signed on January 17, after more than 26 years of back-and-forth negotiations. But yet again, European farming countries are doing whatever they can to stall its implementation. On January 21, European lawmakers backed a resolution to seek an opinion from the EU’s Court of Justice on whether the free-trade deal complies with existing EU treaties. That could stall the deal by up to two years — although the agreement’s backers, such as Germany, are trying to go ahead and implement it on a provisional basis until the court says its piece. Send us your feedback Support the show
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January 16 · 15 min
What happened to Brazil-Venezuela relations? (preview)
Lula did not recognize Maduro’s 2024 election win, but his first two terms in office in the 2000s saw him make South American integration a top priority of Brazil’s foreign policy, and maintain close ties with the Hugo Chavez government of the time.Venezuela held the world’s largest oil reserves. It was a country with limited development in other sectors, highly dependent on imports, and eager to challenge a US-led world order. Brazil, meanwhile, had industrial goods, construction companies looking to expand abroad, and ambitions to lead the political rise of the Global South. The partnership had the potential to be highly fruitful.Since then, however, much has changed in both countries, and ambitious regional integration projects have stalled. Now the United States is once again pulling Venezuela back into its sphere of influence, and away from China and Russia — and Brazil appears to have little room to maneuver.To understand Brazil-Venezuela relations in the 21st century — including the economic and political choices made by each country — our guests are:Diplomat Rômulo Neves, telling us what he witnessed firsthand in Brazil-Venezuela diplomatic relations while serving at the Brazilian Embassy in Caracas in 2007, during Chávez’s government. He is currently Minister-Counselor at the Brazilian Embassy in Rwanda, and author of the book “Political Culture and Elements for Analyzing Venezuelan Politics,” published in Portuguese by Funag. Our Latin America Editor, Ignacio Portes, discusses what has changed in those bilateral relations during Maduro's government. Send us your feedback Support the show
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January 5 · 12 min
Trump’s Venezuela play: How it reshapes South America’s risk map (preview)
In Latin America, 2026 quite literally got off to an explosive start. Just before sunrise on January 2, the city of Caracas was violently awoken by the sound of bombs, as US forces launched a sudden, high-intensity strike on the Venezuelan capital. Within hours, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were in American custody — flown out of the country and headed to New York to face criminal charges. The Venezuelan government has provided no official death count from the strikes, but they are believed to be in the dozens — at least 40, per some accounts. Even by Washington’s standards, this was extraordinary. But it aligns neatly with Washington’s new worldview. In its latest National Security Strategy, the US no longer frames Latin America as a partner. Instead, the US describes it as a buffer — a region expected to stop migrants, narcotics and Chinese influence before they reach US shores. Send us your feedback Support the show
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