The Dollar, the Ballot, and the Mirror

Abin reports American interference, Washington funds groups opposing the STF, and Brazil's election enters the international spotlight

Fernando Fagundes Ferreira · 2026-10-01

A few days before Brazilians go to the polls, three distinct pieces began to form a picture that can no longer be reduced to the traditional exchange of accusations between government and opposition. The first came from Brazilian intelligence. The second, from documents on funding by the U.S. State Department. The third appeared in the pages of *The New York Times*, which turned concern over possible interference by Donald Trump in the Brazilian presidential election into an international headline.

Taken in isolation, none of this information proves the existence of a coordinated operation aimed at determining the outcome of the vote. Together, however, they justify a more serious question: to what extent can foreign policy instruments produce material effects on political competition inside another country?

The answer requires less sloganeering and more method.

In September, representatives of France and Germany were in Brasília for meetings that included Brazilian intelligence and digital security officials. According to Reuters, which had access to documents and heard from participants in the meetings, officials from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, Abin, told the Europeans of the existence of interference by the United States and Russia in the Brazilian electoral process.

The report of the meeting, as described by Reuters, records that Abin representatives characterized American activity as a spectrum ranging from *lawfare* to forms of interference “openly acknowledged.” The Brazilian agency did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. The U.S. State Department also did not comment specifically on the information and had previously denied seeking to interfere in the Brazilian elections. No details about the alleged Russian activity were presented at the meeting, according to the report.

The information deserves two simultaneous cautions.

The first is journalistic: Reuters did not independently demonstrate the existence of each form of interference mentioned by the Brazilian officials. What it documented was the holding of the meetings, the content attributed to the Abin briefing, and the concern shared between Brazilian and European authorities.

The second is institutional: when a country's intelligence service brings to foreign governments an assessment that its election is subject to external interference, the information ceases to belong solely to the realm of electoral rhetoric. It becomes part of the state's risk assessment.

The French and German delegations were in Brasília between September 9 and 11. Among their objectives was discussing coordinated responses ahead of the 2026 elections. Representatives participated from Viginum, the French agency dedicated to detecting foreign digital interference, from the French media authority Arcom, and from the German federal agency responsible for telecommunications. A Brazilian cybersecurity official told Reuters that cyberattacks in the country had nearly doubled compared to 2025 and that the number of attempted intrusions and *phishing* attempts against the Presidency of the Republic had also increased, a phenomenon he linked to the electoral period.

It is in this environment that a second piece of information emerges.

*The Guardian* revealed that the Trump administration allocated more than $175 million from the Human Rights and Democracy Fund, a State Department fund traditionally used for human rights programs and democratic strengthening, to a new portfolio of international projects. Among the 43 programs examined by the newspaper was a $1 million initiative titled “Countering Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil,” intended to fund civil society organizations opposed to what the program describes as judicial overreach and censorship practiced by the Federal Supreme Court.

The Brazilian program does not appear in isolation. According to documents obtained by *The Guardian*, the redistribution of resources included initiatives linked to anticommunism, immigration, digital regulation, protection of Christian groups, and the promotion of what U.S. government documents call “Western civilization.” A Democratic congressional aide told the newspaper that there had been congressional holds on part of these funds, including programs concerning Brazil, but that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had authorized the obligation of the funds despite these restrictions. The State Department said the programs were subject to federal procedures and technical review.

For Brazil, the most relevant point is not to establish whether organizations critical of the STF can or cannot receive foreign funding. Brazilian civil society has received international resources for decades, coming from governments, foundations, companies, and multilateral bodies, for projects of the most varied orientations.

The question is the context in which this funding occurs.

The program emerges when the American government has already transformed decisions by Brazilian courts and the regulation of digital platforms into an official matter of foreign and trade policy. In June, the Office of the United States Trade Representative concluded an investigation based on Section 301 of American trade law and stated that certain Brazilian practices harmed U.S. commercial interests. Among the arguments used, the agency cited orders from Brazilian courts directed at American platforms for the removal of political content, account suspensions, and the imposition of fines.

In July, Washington turned part of this diagnosis into an economic measure and imposed an additional 25% tariff on certain Brazilian products. The decision was made under the direction of President Trump, according to the USTR itself.

Thus, the same dispute began to appear in different arenas. The behavior of Brazilian courts was treated as a free speech problem, as an obstacle to digital commerce, as justification for economic measures, and now, as the object of a foreign funding program directed at Brazilian groups.

It is precisely at this point that the word used by Abin, *lawfare*, needs to be examined rather than simply repeated.

What the Assessment Tool™ finds

The Lawfare4All Assessment Tool™ starts from a simple premise: an accusation of *lawfare* cannot be validated merely because someone used the term. It is necessary to observe instruments, asymmetries, selectivity, timing, convergence of actions, and the distribution of benefits and costs.

Applied to the current conflict between the United States and Brazil, the first relevant element is the asymmetry of power. A foreign power has diplomatic, economic, financial, and communicational resources that are not comparable to the capacity for action of a domestic political organization. This does not make all foreign involvement illegitimate, but it means its potential effects must be measured differently.

The second element is selectivity. American funding is not generically directed toward strengthening the Judiciary or the debate over freedom of expression in Brazil. The program revealed by *The Guardian* defines a problem beforehand: “lawfare and censorship” and “judicial overreach” attributed to the Federal Supreme Court. This framing coincides with a narrative that already occupies a central position in the discourse of sectors of the Brazilian right and of Bolsonarism's international allies.

This convergence does not prove electoral coordination. But it produces a factual question that can be investigated: which groups will receive these resources, what content will they produce, which networks will they use to distribute it, and which political actors will benefit from its circulation?

There is also the question of timing. The program is revealed on the eve of a presidential election set for October 4, exactly when Reuters reports that Abin had been discussing with European partners possible forms of foreign interference. Timing, on its own, does not establish intent. But it is part of the context necessary for understanding impact.

Finally, there is a convergence of instruments. Trade pressure, diplomatic criticism, disputes involving digital platforms, political sanctions, and civil society funding are different instruments. The analytical work begins precisely when one asks whether these actions function independently or whether, in practice, they produce accumulated pressure in the same direction.

The Assessment Tool™ does not allow one to conclude, from the facts available, that the United States is conducting a centralized operation to elect Flávio Bolsonaro. The available public evidence does not demonstrate that nexus.

But the same instrument also does not allow each episode to be treated as if it existed in watertight compartments.

There is a trade policy directed at Brazil. There is an explicit conflict with decisions by Brazilian courts. There is American government funding for groups that oppose the STF. There is open political support from members of the Trump administration for ideologically aligned candidates and movements in different countries. And there is now a report from Brazilian intelligence according to which part of this whole is understood internally as external interference.

The investigation begins where certainty ends.

The New York Times photograph

On October 1, *The New York Times* brought the subject to its international section with the headline “Some Brazilians Fear Meddling by Trump in Their Coming Election.”

The photograph chosen by the newspaper helps explain the political dimension of the matter. Taken during a demonstration in São Paulo on September 7, it shows a crowd favorable to Flávio Bolsonaro and, above the participants, a large representation of Donald Trump holding an image of Lula.

It is not proof of interference.

It is a graphic representation of a political relationship that is no longer hidden by its own participants.

This difference matters. Publicly supporting a foreign candidate is not equivalent to tampering with ballots, illegally funding a campaign, or conducting a clandestine disinformation operation. There are different degrees, instruments, and limits of external political influence.

It is precisely this intermediate zone that Brazilian public debate still describes poorly.

PIR™: the problem may lie in missing context

This is where the second Lawfare4All instrument becomes useful.

The Public Intelligibility Review, PIR™, does not seek only to know whether a given piece of information is true or false. It asks whether the public has received sufficient context to understand the meaning of the information.

The protocol works with a sequence:

SOURCE → CONTEXT → LANGUAGE → INTEREST → EVIDENCE → IMPACT → ACTION.

In the current episode, the source includes documents from the American government, reporting from Reuters and *The Guardian*, decisions by the USTR, and statements from the institutions involved.

The context includes a presidential election, a bilateral relationship deteriorated in certain areas, a dispute between Washington and the Brazilian Supreme Court over digital platforms, and the ideological alignment between Trump and sectors of the Brazilian right.

The language demands special attention. “Freedom of expression,” “censorship,” “defense of democracy,” “foreign interference,” and “lawfare” are not words devoid of political dispute. Used without definition and without evidence, they can function as foregone conclusions.

This is why the distinction between fact, interpretation, and hypothesis must remain visible.

It is a fact that the USTR turned Brazilian decisions involving platforms into part of a trade investigation.

It is a fact that a $1 million initiative was announced for organizations that oppose what the American program characterizes as *lawfare* and censorship in Brazil.

It is a fact that Abin officials, according to documents and sources obtained by Reuters, presented European authorities with an assessment that there was American interference in the electoral process.

It is an interpretation, still subject to demonstration, that all these actions are part of a coordinated electoral operation.

This separation is perhaps the main contribution of a Public Intelligibility Review.

The democratic problem can arise both when facts are hidden and when true facts are connected by a causality that the evidence does not yet support.

There is no need to choose between the STF and Washington

Part of the difficulty of the Brazilian debate stems from a false choice.

Questioning the external actions of the United States does not require considering every decision of the Federal Supreme Court correct. Likewise, criticizing decisions of the STF does not imply accepting any form of foreign pressure on Brazilian institutions.

A democracy must be able to sustain both discussions at the same time.

Judicial decisions can be contested. Restrictions on freedom of expression can be examined. Procedures can be criticized and reformed.

At the same time, when a foreign government employs public money, trade instruments, and diplomatic power in a domestic institutional dispute, the affected country has legitimate reasons to ask what the objectives, recipients, and effects of that action are.

Turning one discussion into the denial of the other only impoverishes the diagnosis.

Who captures the benefit, who finances the cost?

There is a particularly useful question for organizing the case: who captures the benefit and who finances the cost?

If American tariffs hit Brazilian products, who absorbs the economic loss?

If civil society organizations receive foreign funding to contest the narrative about the STF, who receives additional communication and organizational capacity?

If judicial decisions produce excessive restrictions, who bears the cost to freedom of expression?

If accusations of foreign interference are used electorally without sufficient support, who receives the political benefit of that narrative?

The question needs to work in all directions.

Otherwise, the instrument stops being a method and becomes a confirmation of prior beliefs.

It is precisely here that the Brazilian episode becomes most interesting for the contemporary study of *lawfare*. The phenomenon may not be restricted to the use of courts or criminal proceedings against opponents. The dispute may involve the combination of legal, economic, financial, technological, and communicational instruments capable of altering the environment in which political decisions are made.

Determining whether this threshold has been crossed in Brazil requires more evidence than is currently available.

But there is already enough material to justify the investigation.

Brazilian intelligence reported concern about external interference. The American government incorporated Brazilian judicial decisions into its trade policy. Public U.S. resources were directed to a program intended to confront “lawfare and censorship” in Brazil. The presidential election takes place in three days. And different Brazilian political actors may gain or lose from each of these initiatives.

Perhaps the most important question, then, is not whether Donald Trump is “interfering” or “not interfering” in the Brazilian elections, as if there were only two possibilities.

The harder question is to define where foreign policy ends, where political influence begins, and at what point the combination of money, sanctions, tariffs, technology, and institutional power starts to meaningfully alter the conditions of an election held within another State.

That boundary is not simple.

It is precisely for this reason that it needs to be examined before someone decides, out of political convenience, where it ought to be.