May 29 2026| Nº. 207

Editorial

Brazil’s 2026 presidential election is undergoing a growing process of internationalization. In recent weeks, the political contest has ceased to unfold exclusively within national borders and has increasingly incorporated actors, agendas, and narratives from the international arena. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s visit to the White House and the subsequent decision by the U.S. Department of State to designate the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV) as narco-terrorist organizations are clear signs of this phenomenon.

The meeting between Flávio Bolsonaro and President Donald Trump represented more than a diplomatic gesture. The episode projected internationally the leading figure of the Bolsonaro camp in the presidential race and signaled that sectors of the Trump movement are closely following developments in Brazil’s political landscape. For a candidacy that had been facing domestic setbacks due to revelations regarding its connections with banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is currently imprisoned in connection with the Banco Master scandal, the visit helped shift public attention and offered an opportunity to reposition the political debate around issues such as security, sovereignty, and the fight against organized crime.

A few days after the meeting, the U.S. government’s decision to place the PCC and CV within the American counterterrorism framework produced tangible consequences in areas such as international cooperation, financial intelligence, and sanctions. The measure may also generate repercussions for financial institutions and economic actors with direct or indirect links to activities under investigation. At the same time, it carries a powerful symbolic dimension. It elevates public security as a central issue in Brazil’s political debate and connects it to agendas traditionally associated with foreign policy and international security.

As has occurred in other democracies in recent years, transnational ideological alliances, digital platforms, security agendas, and international narrative disputes are likely to exert increasing influence over electoral processes. Brazil’s presidential campaign has not yet formally begun, but its international dimension is already well underway. What is at stake is not only the contest for control of the federal government, but also the growing insertion of Brazilian politics into a global environment marked by polarization, transnational networks of influence, and geopolitical disputes that are becoming ever more present in democratic life.

Highlights

• Human Development. Brazil has reached the level of very high human development for the first time, according to the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). The report analyzed the country's Municipal Human Development Index from 2012 to 2024, a period in which the national index jumped from 0.744 to 0.805, reaching the highest value in the series and placing the country in the highest classification range.

• Work Schedule. The Chamber of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house, approved on Wednesday, May 27 the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) that ends the 6 x 1 schedule in Brazil. With this, the work week could change from the current 44 hours to 40 hours. In the Chamber, at least 308 votes were needed in favor of the proposal, which received 472 votes. Now the PEC goes to the Senate, where it will be analyzed by committees before being taken to the plenary. The result of the vote is, so far, a victory for Lula, for the left-wing parties, and for the labor unions and social movements, which waged a strong campaign for the PEC's approval.
  

• Radiotherapy. President Lula underwent a radiotherapy session this week to treat skin cancer on the top of his head, which was removed a month earlier. The type of cancer he has, basal cell carcinoma, is considered the least serious and most common type of skin cancer. Lula is 80 years old and will seek re-election in October. If he wins, he will govern for the fourth time. This pre-campaign period should be marked by chemotherapy sessions. There will be at least 15 of them over the next three weeks. But the procedures should not cause the president to cancel his commitments.
  

• Inflation. One of the most important indicators of the Consumer Price Index (IPCA) reached 0.62% in May, representing the highest percentage in the last ten years. The result exceeds the ceiling of the target that had been established for inflation in Brazil during this period. The increase was driven by the rise in food prices (+2.16%), which has a disproportionate weight in the consumption patterns of the poorest families. In the accumulated total for the last 12 months, inflation is 0.14 percentage points above the target ceiling.
  

• Russia and Brazil. Celso Amorim, President Lula's special advisor for international affairs, was in Moscow this week to participate in the International Security Forum. He was received by Vladimir Putin's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and met with interlocutors from more than one hundred countries. In interviews, Amorim defended Brazil's freedom to engage with all interlocutors and reiterated his defense of multilateralism as the only way to restore international peace and security.
  

• Bolivia and Brazil. President Lula received a phone call this week from his Bolivian counterpart, Rodrigo Paz. The Bolivian president, who is right-wing, is facing a large wave of protests from social and labor movements opposed to his neoliberal policies. At the Organization of American States, Rodrigo Paz's foreign minister even mentioned the risk of a democratic breakdown. Lula expressed support for institutional order in Bolivia, called for moderation, and promised to send humanitarian aid to part of the population isolated due to highway blockades across the country.

News from ABO and social organizations and movements:

Cerrado meeting. Leaders and organizations from the Cerrado region shared experiences, challenges, and resistance strategies in dialogue with national and international representatives linked to human rights and climate justice at the meeting "Cerrado in the World: Territories, Rights and Voices in Global Advocacy," held on May 21, 22, and 23 in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. The event contributed to internationalizing the debate on the destruction of the biome and denouncing to the world the socio-environmental impacts of this exploitation model. The dialogues addressed topics such as climate justice, desertification, territorial rights, protection of associated traditional knowledge, and the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent regarding projects and policies that impact territories. Learn more.

Cerrado Course. Registration is open for the course "From the Cerrado Territories to International Decision-Making Spaces," which proposes an environment of exchange and empowerment for people from traditional Indigenous Peoples and Communities (PCTs) and of African origin in the Brazilian Cerrado. There will be 11 weekly classes of one and a half hours, on Wednesdays at 6:30 pm (Brazilian time). Learn more.

Indigenous Peoples. The UN Mechanism for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples visited Brazil this week to produce a guide on the rights of peoples who voluntarily live in isolation. The visit was made in response to an invitation from the International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact / GTI-PIACI, an alliance of 21 South American organizations in the sector. Learn more.

Feature Article

Setbacks in Environmental Legislation: The Paradox of the Brazilian Case 

By Paulo Abrão*

The coordinated offensive by the rural caucus in Brazil's National Congress this week perhaps represents one of the most significant institutional reconfigurations of Brazilian environmental policy since the Bolsonaro government. Under the guise of "modernization," "legal certainty," and "debureaucratization," a set of projects approved or accelerated by the Chamber of Deputies, the lower chamber of Congress, profoundly alters environmental oversight mechanisms, expands the political power of agribusiness over state regulatory structures, and reduces instruments for protecting strategic biomes.

This is not merely a sectoral dispute over licensing or agricultural production. What is underway is a broader dispute over who controls the instruments of the Brazilian state responsible for regulating land use, natural resources, export chains, and international climate commitments.

Among the most controversial projects is the proposal that limits so-called "remote embargoes," making it more difficult for environmental agencies to use satellite imagery to block illegally deforested areas. In practice, the measure weakens one of the main instruments responsible for the recent reduction in deforestation in the Amazon. Another bill significantly expands the influence of the Ministry of Agriculture over technical environmental decisions related to species of economic interest, altering the historical balance between production, environmental protection, and sanitary regulation. Simultaneously, it advances a relaxation of the protection of native vegetation in biomes such as the Cerrado, Caatinga, Pantanal, and Pampa, regions increasingly pressured by the expansion of agriculture.

The political symbolism of the movement is significant. The so-called "Agribusiness Week" in Parliament became a public demonstration of strength by the rural coalition at a time when the Lula government is facing increasing difficulties in maintaining a stable majority in the legislature. More than just isolated defeats for the Lula da Silva government, the episode reveals a process of power fragmentation in the Brazilian political system, in which organized sectors of Congress are increasingly acting as autonomous formulators of structural state agendas.

The reaction of the Ministry of the Environment was unusually intense. Government officials have classified the measures as an “unimaginable setback” and warned of long-term institutional impacts on Brazilian environmental governance. Civil society organizations and experts have once again begun using the expression “passar o boiado,” which literally means “letting the herd pass through,” a Brazilian phrase that means ushering in legally and environmentally questionable projects of benefit to business interests. Its use is a direct reference to the phrase made famous during the Bolsonaro administration, symbolizing the strategy of rapidly relaxing environmental regulations during periods of low public attention. At the same time, the debate is taking place while the country's political and media spotlight remains focused on the mega-corruption scandal involving Banco Master, reducing public attention to far-reaching structural changes.

But perhaps one of the most important elements of this legislative setback lies outside Brazil. The changes are occurring precisely at the moment when the country announces the lowest rate of deforestation in the Amazon in the last ten years, thanks to the recovery of its environmental enforcement capacity, and when the climate agenda is becoming a central variable in global economic geopolitics. The European Union, investment funds, international trade chains, and multilateral mechanisms are moving towards demanding increasingly rigorous environmental traceability of agricultural commodities. New European anti-deforestation legislation, for example, could impose concrete barriers on products associated with environmental destruction. All this occurs precisely in the context of the entry into force of the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union. At the same time, the recently approved UN resolution on state responsibility for climate change increases international pressure for legal and political accountability mechanisms related to compliance with environmental commitments.

The Brazilian paradox then becomes even more evident. While the country seeks to project an image of climate leadership internationally, especially after COP30, decisive sectors of the political system are working internally to reduce the regulatory capacities of the environmental state itself.

The issue is likely to occupy an increasingly central position in the 2026 elections. Not only because of its inherent environmental relevance, but because it has become a point of convergence between disputes over economic models, the role of the state, international insertion, and the strategic place that Brazil intends to occupy in the ongoing reorganization of the global order.

*Paulo Abrão is the Executive Director of the WBO (Washington Brazil Office). He was the National Secretary of Justice of Brazil. He also served as Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States and as Director of the Mercosur Institute of Human Rights. He was a visiting researcher at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.