Lula and Milei both owe their victories to Trump

Argentina President Javier Milei and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva agree on almost nothing. But they now share a debt to President Trump.

A year ago this week, Milei’s party won Argentina’s midterms after Washington tied a $20 billion rescue to the result. On Sunday, Lula won a fourth term in Brazil after more than a year of American tariffs and sanctions bound up with the fate of the Bolsonaro family. Only one of the two was supposed to benefit.

The quick reading of Brazil’s result is that Trump’s push for friendly governments in Latin America has hit a wall. That reading gets his record wrong. Since returning to office, Trump has endorsed, funded or threatened his way into at least seven foreign elections, and the results follow a pattern. When he arrives as a patron, offering something voters need, his candidates win. When he arrives as a punisher of the whole country, or as a cheerleader with nothing concrete to offer, they lose.

Start with the patron. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump said with Milei beside him at the White House. Milei’s party took 40.8 percent . In Honduras, Trump warned that Washington would not be “throwing good money after bad” if Nasry Asfura lost. Asfura won by less than a point . In Poland, Trump received Karol Nawrocki in the Oval Office , and his Homeland Security secretary suggested that U.S. military ties could deepen with Nawrocki as president. Nawrocki won narrowly. In Colombia, where Washington had already sanctioned the president , Trump endorsed Abelardo de la Espriella, who won a runoff so close that his rival demanded a recount.

Every one of those wins was narrow. In a close race, a credible offer is enough.

Then the punisher. In Canada, Trump’s tariffs and talk of a 51st state erased a Conservative lead of double digits and returned the Liberals under Mark Carney , who told voters Trump wanted “to break us so America can own us.” In Brazil, Washington imposed 50 percent tariffs in July 2025, citing the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro. He revoked the visas of eight Supreme Court justices and sanctioned the judge who led the case. This July it added a 25 percent tariff , with Marco Rubio blaming Lula’s “ego.” On the eve of Sunday’s vote, Reuters reported that two State Department officials had pushed sanctions meant to tilt the election toward the Bolsonaros.

Brazil’s two leading pollsters had Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair’s son, ahead 51-49 percent the day before the vote. He lost by 4.4 million votes . The most telling choice of his campaign was his own: five months after sitting in the Oval Office with Trump, he declined to seek Trump’s endorsement for the runoff. Lula closed by declaring that Brazil “will not accept being anyone’s backyard.”

The third role is the cheerleader. Trump gave Viktor Orbán his “Complete and Total Endorsement,” Vice President JD Vance flew to Budapest to campaign , and Hungarians were promised prosperity if Orbán won. His Fidesz party took 37.8 percent . Péter Magyar’s Tisza won 53.6 percent and 138 of 199 seats, running against corruption and for mended ties with the European Union. Asked about it afterward, Trump said , “I wasn’t that involved.”

Sort the cases and a rule emerges. A conditional offer turns an election into a transaction, and voters in a country short of dollars, aid or protection can price it. A punishment aimed at the whole nation turns the same election into a referendum on who runs the country, and the candidate who stands up to Washington wins it. An endorsement with nothing concrete behind it, in a country whose real patron sits elsewhere, is noise. Voters abroad will take Washington’s money. They will not take its orders.

Brazil shows why punishment fails against a country with options. China bought 28.7 percent of Brazil’s exports in 2025; the United States bought 10.8 percent. Under the tariffs, shipments to America fell 35.4 percent year on year in October 2025, and Lula could still tell the U.N. General Assembly last month that exports were at a record . A country that can absorb a penalty has no reason to obey it. Its voters have every reason to resent it.

None of this means Washington decided these elections alone. Colombians voted on fear of armed groups, Hungarians on corruption, Brazilians on prices and pensions, and Lula’s campaign brought nearly 3 million more voters to the polls between rounds. But elections are won at the margin, and Honduras was settled by fewer than one vote in a hundred. In races that close, an American offer or an American threat becomes the frame through which the last undecided voter makes up their mind.

The lesson Washington is likeliest to draw from Brazil is the convenient one: pay, don’t punish. The trouble is what that policy does to the world’s democracies. It sorts them into two classes, those dependent enough to be bought and those independent enough to be provoked. The first will keep electing Washington’s friends by thin margins and on Washington’s terms. The second will keep rewarding leaders who run against it. Neither produces the kind of ally that holds when it matters.

The next test is France, which chooses a president in April 2027 . When a court convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement last year, Trump answered with a post that ended “FREE MARINE LE PEN!” She is now cleared to run . France is no Argentina: Washington has no rescue to offer it, and no penalty French voters would quietly accept. If the pattern holds, the most useful thing Trump can do for Le Pen is stay away from her campaign. Brazilians showed on Sunday what his help costs.

Imran Khalid is a physician and has a master’s degree in international relations.