Trump is pursuing an extremely aggressive imperialist agenda in Latin America, which he considers his “backyard.” Recently, he has been sending thousands of troops to Latin America, using the reactionary rhetoric of a “war on drugs.” The U.S. offensive toward Brazil is an integral part of the strategy to strengthen imperialist penetration. The strategy also includes tariffs, the unacceptable blackmail of Brazilian institutions, and the imposition of sanctions, such as the Magnitsky Act. In addition to these measures, Trump — the world’s greatest violator of human rights — has the audacity to criticize the “human rights violations” of the Brazilian justice system concerning Bolsonaro and the right-wing coup plotters against the democratically elected government of Dilma Rousseff. Trump has even proposed amnesty for those responsible for the reactionary actions against the Three Powers in Brazil on January 8, 2023, inspired by his actions on January 6, 2021, in the U.S.
We unconditionally reject all imperialist interference and blackmail against Brazilian institutions and their representatives. Not long ago, imperialist interference was expressed in Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), which led to the impeachment of Rousseff, the imprisonment of Lula, and the rise of Bolsonaro. Today, the Trump administration seeks to further increase the Brazilian judiciary’s submission to imperialism, attempting to impose its will.
For this reason, there has emerged a broad anti-imperialist sentiment in Brazil. After decades in which this was not expressed — thanks to the Brazilian ruling class, which undermined anti-imperialist consciousness during neoliberalism — this sentiment has been reactivated by Trump’s policies, the genocide in Palestine, and the intensification of the international crisis, as is happening in the rest of the world. This is a powerful political force to confront imperialism, alongside the Latin American working class and oppressed, whose anti-imperialist sentiment against the U.S. has a long-standing tradition. Yankees out of Brazil and Latin America! We won’t be a star on the Yankee flag. We will not accept Trump’s revival of the old tradition of coups in Latin America, which was marked by U.S.-sponsored dictatorships, including in Brazil. The U.S. working class must strengthen its ties with workers in Brazil and throughout Latin America, in a united rejection of Trump and the U.S. bourgeoisie.
Far from using a discourse of “national unity” with the representatives of big capital, we must spread an anti-capitalist perspective. In every country, we must fight the ruling classes that oppress and plunder the working class and our nations. They are the real enemies who profit from our exploitation and promote xenophobia and racism. We stand against the tariff war and offer a socialist response, with class independence, because neither the neoliberal “free market” nor tariff protectionism will improve the living conditions of the working class and the majority worldwide. The working class must fight for its own anti-imperialist program while maintaining its independence from the national bourgeoisie. Only a large and massive movement can drive the anti-imperialist struggle and the construction of true popular sovereignty, with the working class and the oppressed self-organized from below. Long live the unity of workers throughout America against imperialism.
Fight Trump’s Demagoguery and Militarism
Neoliberalism has not only undermined rights and increased inequality throughout the world, benefiting a minority of the superrich, but it has also damaged the United States, where there are now 40 million poor people, and where some cities have a per capita GDP similar to Bolivia’s.
Trump seeks popularity by presenting himself as the solution to this, attacking immigrants and imposing tariffs, always with a demagogic discourse of “creating jobs for Americans.” California has been one of the targets of these policies but is also a bastion of popular resistance, with uprisings against anti-immigrant policies. Left Voice has participated in this struggle, as Julia Wallace, a Los Angeles worker on the front lines of the demonstrations, reported to Esquerda Diário. Julia points out that this is a profound phenomenon, connecting the struggles of immigrants and Black people, which is visible in the streets as protesters fly both the Palestinian and the Mexican flags together.
Much is said about the supposed “irrationality” of Trump’s tariffs against Brazil and other countries. Some explain this “economic irrationality” with the simplistic argument that the issue is merely that Brazil has a trade deficit with the United States. This argument seeks to spare Bolsonaro and Brazilian right-wingers from legal proceedings. In fact, for Trump, this move has an important political intention: to build a new “Right-Wing International,” of which Steve Bannon is one of the main ideologues and which is linked to the Bolsonaro family. Trump’s friendly treatment of Milei in Argentina is part of this political agenda.
There is, however, a deeper strategic objective behind the demagogic campaign of “jobs for Americans,” the anti-immigrant offensive, and tariffs — a goal that does not aim to improve the lives of the working class in the U.S., nor is it limited to building the Right-Wing International. Trump seeks to rebuild the U.S. industrial base to prepare the country for greater military conflicts. Strategic competition with China worries the United States above all because the U.S. has lost much of its domestic capacity for large-scale military and high-tech production. This means that we may see an intensification of bombings, such as the recent ones in Iran, which we strongly reject at Left Voice, as we did during a demonstration with Iranian-American activist and Left Voice member, Maryam Alaniz. We can also expect new warmongering offensives such as those carried out by the United States alongside NATO in Ukraine, or genocides such as that of the Palestinian people.
That is why the policy of the U.S. union bureaucracy, which aligns itself with Trump and his tariffs, must be denounced and overcome. This policy is being carried out not only by Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who is more openly pro-Trump — shameful for a leader of a union that represents, for example, Amazon workers, who are mostly immigrants — and who did not even express solidarity with Chris Smalls when he was arrested in Israel, even though Smalls is a founder of the first Amazon union. Unfortunately, this policy has also been carried forward by the UAW’s Shawn Fain, who has spoken out against the genocide in Gaza but is defending the chauvinist tariff policy. U.S. workers must reject the intentions of Trump and militarist imperialism to intensify the exploitation of Latin American workers and workers around the world as a supposed path to improving wages and working conditions in the United States, fighting any form of “military Keynesianism.”
The Democratic Party is Not an Alternative: We Need a Working-Class Party in the U.S. That Fights for Socialism
Despite their differences, Republicans and Democrats agree on supporting the genocidal state of Israel, attacking the American working class, and exploiting the countries on the periphery of the capitalist system.
The most important point of consensus between the Democratic and Republican parties is their dispute with China, which has direct consequences for the confrontation with Brazil and the oppressed countries of Latin America. The Democratic Party also has a long history of oppressing the people of Brazil and others around the world. A recent example is Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), launched during the Obama administration.
Sérgio Moro, the judge responsible for Lava Jato, was trained by the U.S. State Department, as were several jurists who practice “lawfare” in Latin America and around the world. Like the Republicans, the Democrats have historical ties to the Brazilian Armed Forces and are a central agent of reactionary forces within this coup-plotting institution.
The Democratic Party faces a deep crisis, as Left Voice elaborated in its recent magazine, with ruptures both on the right, toward Trumpism, and on the left, with the emergence of figures such as Zohran Mamdani of the DSA in New York. Meanwhile, the majority of the Democratic Party is trying to regroup as a defender of the status quo, betting on Trump’s decline. That is why, at Left Voice, we call for the building of a large working-class party that fights for socialism and anti-imperialism, a party that is completely independent of the Democratic Party and the bosses. The DSA’s policy of regenerating the Democratic Party is illusory and unviable.
Lula Aims to Build “National Sovereignty” Alongside the Capitalists
In this context, Lula gave an interview to the New York Times, published under the headline “No One Challenges Trump like Brazil’s President.” He launched a policy “in defense of national sovereignty” and, echoing the symbolism and rhetoric of the MAGA movement in the United States, initiated the campaign “Brazil belongs to Brazilians.” But this supposed “nationalism” is not progressive, because it does not ally itself with the Latin American or U.S. working class but rather seeks “national unity” with the native bourgeoisie, the Federal Supreme Court, and the National Congress. The government even sought alliances with reactionary sectors of agribusiness linked to Bolsonarism.
We have always warned against trusting the judiciary as a “guarantor of democracy,” which it has never been; recently, Brazil’s judges acted together to undermine national sovereignty during Operation Car Wash. We are at the forefront of repudiating this new interference, which now aims to favor Bolsonaro and the coup plotters. But we caution that the Bonapartist escalation of judge Alexandre de Moraes, who recently gave an interview to the Washington Post, does not benefit workers either, since these authoritarian measures were used, for example, to arbitrarily imprison Lula and will always be weapons used to attack the rights of the working class.
Brazil no longer “belongs to Brazilians,” given that its economy is largely subordinate to other powers, especially the United States. Similarly, those who today speak of “national sovereignty” maintain close ties to imperialism and foreign capital.
As we said in this article, the program launched by the Lula government in response to the tariff hikes, called “Sovereign Brazil,” is a bailout for companies, not workers. Despite its rhetoric, the government has not presented a policy that effectively prevents the layoffs already taking place. The plan is yet another example of the socialization of losses and privatization of profits: in the face of an external crisis, the government injects billions to preserve corporate profit margins, while the cost falls on society as a whole through debt and tax breaks.
In addition to the lack of effective anti-imperialist measures, the government has also signaled its openness to negotiate greater concessions to Trump in strategic areas. For example, despite its rhetoric, the Brazilian government has shown a willingness to make concessions on rare earths and critical minerals, as well as to deepen its submission to Big Tech, often linking common natural resources as bargaining chips. Although negotiations are still ongoing, and it is unclear what demands the United States will make and what concessions Brazil will offer, the fact that these issues are even being debated shows that there is no real concern for “national sovereignty.”
The material force on which Lula relies for this “confrontation” with the U.S. is not any mobilization to adopt concrete measures in defense of true national sovereignty or anti-imperialism. He relies, on the one hand, on the national bourgeoisie and the institutions of the political regime; on the other, on China and the BRICS.
This is a central factor in Trump’s conflict with Brazil, which is that the U.S. wants to prevent China’s expansion in Latin America. China is far from being “socialist,” as some sectors of the Left claim, and its supposed “benign multilateralism” should not be seen as a “lesser evil” to be defended in the face of U.S. imperialism, as André Barbieri explains. It is a capitalist country that seeks exploitative advantages in Latin America, in direct competition with the United States, and it does not represent the interests of the Brazilian working class but rather aims to increase its levels of exploitation.
The “multilateral” discourse of the BRICS also falls apart in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an expansionist war against which we defend an independent policy, both from the Zelenskyy gang, the U.S., and NATO, as well as from Russia. There is no “progressive camp” in this conflict; what is needed here is the unity of the working class across different countries, and in each country, against Putin, Zelenskyy, and the arms race in Europe and the U.S.
We Need to Fight Trump with Class Independence and Internationalism
Neoliberal “free trade” has been a disaster for the working class in the United States and around the world, increasing exploitation and making working conditions more precarious. Protectionism, however, is not the solution either. The imposition of tariffs raises the prices of goods and services consumed by workers. It is the workers themselves who suffer the greatest impact from tariffs, both in the U.S. and in Brazil. Capitalism has developed a deeply interconnected global economy, whose connections cannot simply be undone, nor would this be in the interests of the working class. Trade tensions are used by businesses and corporations to cut labor rights, reduce wages, and increase job insecurity. Capitalists will not cut their profits; they will offload their crises onto the backs of workers.
Contrary to the bailout plans for big business affected by tariffs, we must ensure that there are no layoffs, wage cuts, or reductions in workers’ rights, and that this is financed by confiscating large imperialist funds, such as BlackRock and the Vanguard Group. In both Brazil and the United States, we must fight attacks on the working class and for any company that carries out mass layoffs to be nationalized under workers’ control. No family on the street!
We must revoke all agreements that subordinate the national economy to imperialism and ensure that common natural resources are under the control of workers, in alliance with environmentalists. Currently, 63 percent of Petrobras’s capital is outside state control (46 percent of its shares are traded on Wall Street). Brazilian oil must be 100 percent state owned, controlled, and administered by oil workers. Oil must belong to Brazilians, not to imperialism or to fuel genocide! That is why we, the MRT, together with Leandro Lanfredi — director of Sindipetro-RJ and the National Federation of Oil Workers — have been promoting a strong campaign alongside BDS, the Freedom Flotilla, and other organizations for “Not a drop of oil from Petrobras and Brazil to Israel!,” denouncing Brazil’s role in supplying energy to the genocidal state.
This struggle for an energy embargo on Israel has the solidarity of the global working class, not governments. We are inspired by the actions of the Italian dockworkers and the Barcelona dockworkers, who are seeking to stop the war machine using the methods of the working class. This, combined with massive mobilizations in each country against genocide and initiatives such as the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza, is fundamental. We, of the Trotskyist Faction, participated in the Global March for Gaza with a delegation of comrades, and we are internationally coordinated with this important action, which included the presence of Chris Smalls, founder of the first Amazon union. In an interview with Esquerda Diário, he discussed the central role of the working class in stopping Israel’s war machine, without trusting the Arab bourgeoisie or governments.
We cannot allow imperialism, China, and other powers to continue treating Latin America and Brazil as the “world’s farm,” sources of commodity exploitation, ruining nature and leaving a trail of destruction in every country. We reject any imperialist exploitation of rare earths, critical minerals, and the use of Brazil as a platform for data and nature exploitation by Big Tech. We do not accept any imperialist interference in the Amazon, which has been exploited for decades by foreign powers, often under the guise of “ecology.”
We fight for debt forgiveness for countries economically subordinate to the United States. The U.S. and organizations such as the IMF are suffocating national economies with these debts and adjustment plans, as we see in sister countries like Argentina, Honduras, Ecuador, and Colombia. Starting with the PTS in Argentina, we have been campaigning vigorously for a break with the IMF and the removal of imperialism, represented by Javier Milei. Trump and the IMF out of all of Latin America!
Regarding the nonpayment of the Brazilian public debt, which is illegal, illegitimate, and fraudulent, this debt is not formally external but represents a huge drain on the budget due to astronomical interest payments to major international bankers such as JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. In 2025 alone, 1.3 trillion reais were spent on debt rollovers, almost half of the public budget.
For the unity of the Black people of the Americas against imperialism, connecting us deeply with the struggles of the African people who face genocide in the Congo, we must expand repudiation through actions such as the one we organized at Casa Marx in São Paulo (Brazil), as well as actions like this in support of the struggle of the people of Angola, who are currently rising up against the austerity measures and repression of the João Lourenço government. Let us also strongly confront the historical attacks on the LGBTQIAP+ community. Trump seeks to erase the existence of trans people, cut health services, and now the Supreme Court wants to overturn same-sex marriage, which encourages the extreme Right around the world to escalate its attacks and which in Brazil has the precedent of Bolsonaro’s transphobic ID card, sanctioned by Lula.
We call on organizations in the United States that claim to be leftist or socialist, as well as unions and human rights organizations to speak out and stand in solidarity in rejecting Trump and to engage in united internationalist action. Workers’ unions must call assemblies and meetings in each country to organize a plan of struggle with demands such as those we have outlined here.
We must defend the unity of the working class and the oppressed, with the strategic perspective of creating workers’ governments that serve as bastions of the struggle against imperialism on both a continental and global scale. Only if the working class and the oppressed take power can we advance the economic, social, political, and cultural integration of the region toward a Federation of Socialist States of America.
The Battle against the Genocide of the Palestinian People Is at the Core of Our Anti-imperialist Struggle
The cruelest and most bloodthirsty aspect of imperialism’s decay is the genocide of the Palestinian people, which increasingly mobilizes the entire world amid the spread of hunger. Trump and Netanyahu symbolize the most reactionary and dangerous forces for the working class and oppressed peoples globally, but they represent a much broader problem. As we know, the genocide of the Palestinian people results from a policy articulated by different factions of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries of the “West,” which fueled the artificial creation of the State of Israel, along with the USSR led by the Stalinist bureaucracy. This initiated a process of ethnic cleansing that has lasted for decades and is now at an acute moment. We are inspired by the historic resistance of the Palestinian people and the growing worldwide support for their struggle against genocide and for a Free Palestine from the River to the Sea — a struggle that has one of its most active centers in the United States.
Let us deepen the struggle against the repression of all those who defend the Palestinian people. The release of Mahmoud Kalil, a leader of the pro-Palestinian student movement in New York, who was imprisoned for 104 days, was an important victory. After 41 years of struggle, Georges Abdallah, Europe’s longest-serving political prisoner, was finally freed.
As the Trotskyist Faction, with the support of dozens of organizations and hundreds of intellectuals and public figures from various countries, including Brazil and the United States, we are promoting a strong international campaign against the persecution of Anasse Kazib, a railway worker and spokesperson for our current in France, Révolution Permanente, for his defense of the Palestinian people. In the United States, widespread persecution of pro-Palestine activists continues, especially in universities, where the vanguard of the struggle is located. We at Left Voice have participated in this struggle against repression and dismissals, as in CUNY, and we call for the deepening of a broad democratic campaign against the repression of all those who fight for Palestine. It will be essential to mobilize the political strength of the millions of voters who supported Mamdani, who express a strong desire to fight in defense of the Palestinian people and against the repression of immigrants.
Against the “Right-Wing International”: Working-Class Internationalism
Faced with the “reactionary international” of Trump, Netanyahu, and Bolsonaro, we reaffirm that the only way to overcome the misery and exploitation of the vast majority is by adopting a consistent anti-imperialist policy, one based on the independence of the working class and the struggle against the national bourgeoisies. The bourgeoisie and their rulers think about their politics and alliances on an international scale. What is missing is the international politics of the proletariat. The program and strategy we propose in this statement outline a path for the emergence of the working class as an independent subject in the class struggle and political battle.As part of the Trotskyist Faction – Fourth International, the MRT and Left Voice fight alongside other national sections of our current, present in 14 countries, with an International Network of Journals in eight languages. We participate in the anti-imperialist movement in various countries, driven by the urgent cause of the Palestinian people, particularly in sections where this movement has been strongest, such as in France, Germany, Chile, and the United States. A strong anti-imperialist sentiment is rising among a segment of the international youth, who are mobilizing not only for Palestine but also for the oppressed peoples of the world, including the struggle in support of migrants. We are part of these movements because we want to build, alongside this youth and the workers, a great anti-imperialist movement at the international level, anchored in a socialist strategy of working-class unity against war, colonialism, oppression, and capitalist exploitation. As part of this initiative, we also recently launched a unified statement from the International Revolutionary Socialist Youth, a group within the Trotskyist Faction for the Fourth International, advocating for an internationalist youth in solidarity with Palestine and against imperialist aggression in the Middle East. We call on you to join us in building these struggles, which will be among the themes of our 14th International Conference, to be held in December in São Paulo, Brazil, where we will host an important internationalist event. This will be another fundamental initiative, inspired by the great event we recently held in Paris, which brought together more than 2,000 people. These are some of the actions for constructing a revolutionary socialist international organization — a world party of revolution, which for us is the Fourth International.
