As president of the Washington Brazil Office (WBO) Board of Directors, I can’t help but write this week’s column about the important Brazilian parliamentary activity that took place last week in Washington. A mission of four party leaders supported by the WBO traveled to the U.S. capital at a very opportune moment, given the latest set of attacks on Brazil by Bolsonarism and their allies in the Republican Party and the Trump administration,
The delegation was composed of four members of the Camara dos Deputados: Jandira Feghali (PCdoB/RJ), Pedro Uczai (PT/SC), Pedro Campos (PSB/PE) and deputy leader of the government, and André Janones (MG/Rede). Their mission was simple: reach out to Democratic Party members of the U.S. Congress to inform them on the current political situation in Brazil and educate them on the negative impacts that Trump’s new policies will have on the country.
Among the topics addressed by the delegation to members of the U.S. Congress was the appeal to encourage international cooperation between Brazil and the United States in combating transnational organized crime, criminal groups, and money laundering. The extremely detailed proposal presented a series of meticulous suggestions on how international cooperation could address threats to public security without relinquishing Brazilian national sovereignty.
A second public request asked for an investigation to determine “whether individuals, companies, law firms, bank accounts, funds, investment vehicles, service contracts, corporate structures, or intermediaries subject to US jurisdiction were used to receive, move, conceal, disguise, or integrate potentially illicitly obtained funds linked to the Banco Master case, Daniel Vorcaro, financial structures related to Reag, funds suspected of being linked to money laundering associated with the PCC, and Brazilian political agents linked to the Bolsonaro family.”
A third issue raised by the delegation concerns the new tariffs imposed by Trump on Brazil, considering the significant trade surpluses in goods and services with the country. “Replacing economic rationality with ideological and geopolitical interests undermines stability and weakens the strategic relationship between the two countries,” the mission argued.
The delegation was very well received. Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts and co-chair of the Tom Lantos Bipartisan Commission on Human Rights in the U.S. Congress, and Representative Sidney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat from California and co-chair of the Brazilian Caucus in Congress, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to meet with the delegation and promised to seriously consider the proposed recommendations. Other congressional offices had similarly positive reactions, as reported by Folha de São Paulo.
The WBO’s executive director, Paulo Abrão, who recently served as executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, commented on the purpose of the delegation: “At this moment, it is essential to diversify the Brazilian legislative voices that engage with the United States. This delegation brings together high-level democratic leaders, whose participation will contribute to a more informed debate and a deeper understanding of Brazil’s political and institutional reality on the international stage.”
Defending Brazilian Democracy in 2022
This was not the first Brazilian congressional delegation organized by the WBO. In February 2020, on the eve of the Covid outbreak in the United States, Brazilian Congresswomen Joenia Wapichana (REDE/RR), Erika Kokay (PT/DF), and Fernanda Melchionna (PSOL/RS) traveled to Washington, D.C. to hold strategic meetings with U.S. lawmakers. They discussed shared struggles in opposing regressive political actions stemming from their respective executive branches under Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump during his first mandate.
In July 2022, the WBO organized another mission composed of representatives from 20 civil society organizations that meet with members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives; the AFL-CIO, the largest union federation representing 15 million workers; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States; and other Washington international entities. Their goal was to discuss the threats to the Brazilian elections by the Bolsonaro government, which was questioning the validity of the electric voting machines, and to call on the international community to recognize the outcome of the presidential elections.
After the delegation’s meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist from the State of Vermont stated: “What I heard [from the delegation] unfortunately sounds all too familiar to me because of the efforts of [Donald] Trump and his friends to undermine American democracy. I’m not surprised that Bolsonaro is trying to do the same in Brazil. We really hope that the result of the [Brazilian] elections will be recognized and respected, and that democracy will, in fact, prevail in Brazil.”
In large part because of this and other actions, the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous consent resolution “urging the Government of Brazil to ensure that the October 2022 elections are conducted in a free, fair, credible, transparent, and peaceful manner, otherwise the United States must reconsider its relations with the Brazilian government and suspend cooperation programs, including in the military area.” The resolution also called on the Biden administration to “immediately recognize the outcome of the election in Brazil” and to “review and reconsider the relationship between the United States any government that comes to power in Brazil through undemocratic means, including a military coup.”
In a parallel initiative, over the course of 2021 and 2022, the Biden administration set a series of communications to the Bolsonaro administration and the Brazilian armed forces that the U.S. government would oppose any attempt at a military coup to overturn the election results. We now know that President Biden’s clear and consistent message along with multiple statements by members of the U.S. Congress discouraged key generals in the armed forces declined to join Jair Bolsonaro’s attempted coup, contributing to its failure.
The invasion of government buildings in Brasília on January 8, 2023 led to another international mission. From April 29 to May 2, 2024, the Vladimir Herzog Institute, in partnership with the WBO, promoted the exchange of experiences among congressional representatives regarding the defense of democracy, more specifically on the anti-democratic attacks of January 6, 2021 on the U.S. Capitol, those of January 8, 2023 against the three branches of Brazilian government, and their respective investigations. The mission was composed of members of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on January 8: Senator Eliziane Gama (PSD-MA), Deputy Pastor Henrique Vieira (PSOL-RJ), Senator Humberto Costa (PT-PE), Deputy Rafael Brito (MDB-AL), Deputy Jandira Feghali (PCdoB-RJ), and Deputy Rogério Correia (PT-MG).
The CIPÓ Platform, in partnership with the Washington Brazil Office, led another parliamentary diplomacy mission to Washington D.C. between December 4th and 6th, 2024, to strengthen the commitment and cooperation between Brazilian and American congressmen in promoting climate action, sustainable development, and the defense of democracy on the international stage. This took place in the context of the dissemination of COP30 in Brazil. Representing Brazil were congressional representatives Célia Xakriabá (PSOL-MG), Dandara (PT-MG), Túlio Gadelha (Rede-PE), and Arlindo Chinaglia (PT-SP).
Márcio Moreira Alves Goes to Washington
Last week’s visit of the four deputies, as well as the public and transparent articulations of civil society organizations in the United States during the 2022 elections, has another important historical precedent that took place during the military dictatorship. I wrote about it in We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States (Duke University Press, 2010) with the Portuguese title: Apesar de vocês: a oposição à ditadura militar brasileira nos Estados Unidos. (A second expanded Portuguese-language edition will be published by Editora da UNESP later this year).
On September 2, 1968, opposition congressman Márcio Moreira Alves made a speech in the Chamber of Deputies denouncing the armed forces’ violent invasion of the University of Brasília. He called on the population to boycott the upcoming Independence Day military parades, which infuriated the generals in power. Moreira Alves also called on young women, “those who dance with cadets and date young officers,” to refuse to engage in romantic relationships with military cadets until the restoration of democracy.
General Emílio Garrastazu Médici, at the time the head of the National Intelligence Service (and later president), circulated the congressman’s proposal within the military, provoking pressure on the government to respond to Alves’s “seditious” speech. This unleashed a chain of events that led the military government’s party to attempt to punish Moreira Alves, despite congressional immunity.
In a surprising turn of event, the Congress voted 216 to 141, with 12 abstentions against expelling Moreira Alves. President and four-star general Artur da Costa e Silva used this congressional mutiny as a pretext to crack down on the opposition through the issuing Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5). The decree gave the military unlimited power to close congress, suspend habeas corpus, lift democratic procedures, increase censorship, and carry out systematic torture and repression of the opposition.
Moreira Alves was at the top of the list of politicians who would be punished by AI-5, so he fled to exile in Chile. Soon thereafter he traveled to Washington to meeting with the Mike Mansfield, the President of the U.S. Senate, and other members of Congress to denounce the military regime and call for the U.S. government, which had backed the 1964 coup d’état, to cut off all economic and military aid.
He returned the next year to speak to participate in the second congress of the Latin American Studies Association held in Washington, D.C. As a result of his articulations, the association’s members, experts on Latin America, passed a resolution calling for an end to U.S. support to the military regime. The following day in a press conference, Alves stated: “Only international public opinion could restrain the generals from ‘routine’ torturing of political prisoners.”
In response to the process of the increase repression of the regime’s opponents, U.S. scholars working on Brazil, progressive clerics, and a handful of Brazilian exiles formed the American Friends of Brazil, a small organization that carried out dozens of activities throughout the United States to denounce torture and repression in Brazil, as well as the military regimes anti-popular policies. This effort inspired a decentralized grassroots movement of “friends of Brazil” to educate the U.S. public about the situation in the country.
Over the next five decades different activists–U.S. and Brazilians alike—organized a myriad of activities in support of social movements and the strengthening of democracy in Brazil after the transition to civilian rule, culminating in the founding of the U.S. Network for Democracy in Brazil at the University of Columbia Law School on December 1, 2018. At that meeting, participants also approved a resolution to form the Washington Brazil Office.
Democratic Diplomacy Among Peoples and Nations
It is important to highlight the methodology of the recent delegation of four congresspeople and the civil society missions that the WBO organized to articulate their concerns to U.S. policymakers. First, they were built upon a broad set of concerns articulated by civil society organizations and progressive politicians. The articulations were transparent, and the visits and meetings in Washington, D.C., were openly shared with the press and, through it, with the Brazilian public.
These were not secret meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of the Trump administration to plan ways to undermine the current Brazilian government, impose punitive tariffs on the country, and protect criminals hiding in the United States. They were not designed to encourage the US government to take control of Brazil’s rare minerals, as the Trump administration did with Venezuelan oil. They did not have the long-term goal of finding ways to allow international financial institutions to undermine the PIX money transfer system and replace it with a system that would benefit US banks and credit card companies.
Furthermore, none of the members of the Brazilian civil society delegations or leaders of progressive political parties had used money from questionable sources to buy expensive properties in Florida or Texas. Nor did they defend the Brazilian military regime and its legacy.
Instead, they represented the concerns of more than 80 Brazilian civil society organizations affiliated with the Washington Brazil Office, engaged in a wide range of political, economic, social, and cultural issues aimed at expanding democracy, protecting vulnerable populations, the environment, and the country’s natural resources.
Brazil and the United States have had a long and complex relationship dating back to 1824, when President James Monroe recognized the newly independent country. The two nations collaborated closely in the global fight against fascism during World War II. Unfortunately, at the height of the Cold War, the governments of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, with the fervent support of U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon and his military attaché Vernon Walters, conspired with the Brazilian military to overthrow the democratically constituted government of João Goulart.
The Trump administration has just declared that Brazil is no longer a friendly ally, attempting to create a narrative that the Lula government runs a repressive and authoritarian state. The U.S. State Department has declared the PCC and PV as terrorist organizations to use this newly assigned status to justify direct interventions in Brazilian domestic politics.
The congressional delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C., along with previous initiatives along the same lines, represents an attempt to build horizontal and equal relations between the two countries, rather than creating conditions for Brazil to be subservient to the giant of the north.
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