The Brazilian government has adopted caution in reacting to the possible classification, by the United States, of Brazilian criminal factions as terrorist groups and threats to American national security. The main fear is that political movements could sabotage negotiations for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House. The expectation is that the meeting will be held in April.
With a strategy led by Itamarary, the PT administration has gathered information on State actions adopted by the Lula government to combat organized crime in Brazil, such as the approval of the Security PEC and the Anti-Faction Law Project, in addition to the operations carried out by the Federal Police (PF) to dismantle the financial arm of criminal organizations, such as Carbono Oculto.
These points are being used as arguments, within technical discussions between the two countries, to demonstrate that Brazil already uses a series of devices to combat crime in the country — including the tightening of laws against crime, such as the Antifaction project that awaits Lula’s sanction.
Government members involved in the discussion state that, given the elements presented to the United States, the Brazilian government will maintain that any intervention would be redundant to what is already being done internally.
According to reports, the work has been conducted with “diplomatic sensitivity” so as not to burn bridges that are being built to facilitate the meeting between the two presidents.
Among Lula’s aides, the eventual meeting between the two presidents would be an electoral asset for the PT member on the eve of the elections. The visit would be the culmination of the rapprochement between Lula and Trump, built since September last year, with the fight against organized crime as an important part of the agenda that will be discussed between the two leaders.
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The close relationship that began to be built since September prevents the government from having a harsher reaction to the risk of the United States classifying the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV) as terrorist organizations.
When Trump announced tariffs on Brazilian products in July, Lula and the PT began a campaign in defense of national sovereignty. The government’s assessment is that the response given at that time helped to reverse a negative scenario in the president’s assessment. In August, the PT administration was disapproved by 51% of the population and approved by 46%, according to Quaest. The difference, which had already been 17 points, was five at that time. A survey released this Wednesday by the same institute shows 51% approval and 44% disapproval.
For the president’s assistants, with the tariff, the government finally found a speech capable of mobilizing the population. Lula said at the time that “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being tutored by anyone”.
As O GLOBO reported, State Department officials say they consider Brazilian criminal factions “a relevant threat to regional security” and assess that the PCC and CV are of concern to security authorities in the hemisphere.
Allies of the Lula government claim that the possible classification of CV and PCC as terrorist organizations by the American government would have serious effects on the country’s sovereignty and could be used as justification for United States interventions in the country’s internal affairs.
There is no shortage of examples: allies cite recent cases of interventionist bravado — such as Trump’s statements associating, without evidence, the Colombian government with drug trafficking — and military interventions — such as that in Venezuela, which also involved an accusation that the then dictator Nicolás Maduro and other leaders of his regime had links with drug trafficking.
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Despite the negotiations between Itamaraty and the American government, leaders of Lula’s allied base in Congress have already said publicly that classifying the PCC and the CV as terrorists would be a kind of second act of the Bolsonaro family’s international action against Brazil’s interests, as it would leave the country exposed to sanctions and interventions by the United States government in internal matters.
To counter the opposition discourse that opposing the classification of criminal factions as terrorists would be defending them, these allies have reinforced that recent PF operations, such as Carbono Oculto, have financially dismantled criminal organizations.
— Their agenda (Bolsonaro opposition) is for foreign governments to execute. They dream of taking over the Brazilian government by force. They dream of foreign intervention in our country. That’s the goal. The PCC and the CV have never been fought as much as during the Lula government. They have their territories and are fought in the territories where they are. These factions also have commanders, in suits and ties — says Randolfe Rodrigues (PT-AP), government leader in the Senate.
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PT leader in the Chamber, Pedro Uczai (SC) states that the factions in question “are criminal organizations that want to make money illicitly, they do not have an ideology behind them”.
— When the United States government wants to force and conceptualize or categorize PCC and Red Command as a terrorist entity, it has no interest in confronting organized crime, it has other interests that need to be made clear — he told GLOBO.
Uczai highlights that the USA can collaborate in the fight against crime through the financial strangulation of criminal activities and recalled that the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, has already sent the United States information about criminals operating in Brazil from American territory.
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