THE GUARDIAN: Marco Rubio made announcement after meeting president’s far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro
Brazil will not be treated as a “tinpot country,” the country’s president, Luiz Inácio da Silva, said on Friday after the United States designated Brazil’s two largest criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organisations.
The announcement, made by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, on Thursday, is being widely seen in Brazil as a setback for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president who had strongly opposed the designation – and a boost for Lula’s main challenger in October’s presidential election, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro.
Chosen to run in place of his father, Jair Bolsonaro – the former president who is barred from running because he is in house arrest after being convicted of attempting a coup – Flávio spent this week in the US, where he met with Donald Trump and Rubio.
Lula said he was “very saddened” by the news that “the United States secretary, from North America, a certain Marco Rubio, said that our criminals here are terrorists and that Americans can intervene”, he said during a speech at an event in the state of Sergipe.
“We do not accept being treated like little boys. We do not accept being treated as if we were some tinpot country,” he added.
In a statement, he also called the Bolsonaro family “traitors” and “false patriots”. » | Tiago Rogero in Rio de Janeiro | Friday, May 29, 2026
