The Brazilian presidency “repudiated” the withdrawal of the visa of its ambassador in Washington, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, in the midst of a diplomatic dispute with the United States government, which it accused of trying to interfere in the elections next October.
"Today's decision is not an isolated event. It is part of a deliberate escalation of hostile measures against Brazil, motivated by ideological reasons incompatible with a bilateral relationship that has always been characterized by mutual respect," said the office of the leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a statement.
“The unjustified interest in interfering in the next presidential elections is evident,” said the statement, which condemns the decision of President Trump's Administration.
The statement also refuted the arguments put forward today by a US official to justify the measure, who alleged alleged reciprocity for the Brazilian Government's delay in granting approval to the US ambassador designated for Brasilia, Daniel Pérez.
The Brazilian Government said that the United States request regarding Ambassador Pérez “is still being analyzed” and clarified that the Vienna Convention does not stipulate deadlines for providing a response.
Likewise, he stressed that according to that Convention, the United States could not have disclosed the name of the ambassador before Brazil gave its approval.
In announcing the cancellation of the ambassador's visa, the US official also recalled that in March the Brazilian authorities denied visas to a US delegation that would travel to a forum on critical minerals and, more recently, they rejected the visas of the undersecretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) and one of his deputies for a visit that Washington described as routine.
The Brazilian Government assured today that these officials were planning to visit the country "to cast doubt on the integrity of the Brazilian electoral system, in an unacceptable attempt to interfere in the national political process."
The Brasilia statement also highlighted that the sanctions imposed by the US on Brazilian authorities, including several judges of the Supreme Court, remain in force, based on the “unfounded” accusation of political persecution against former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), sentenced to 27 years in prison for a coup d'état, and recalled that Lula himself personally requested Trump, last May, to lift these sanctions.
The diplomatic dispute occurs at a time of growing tension between Washington and Brasilia, less than two months before the October elections, in which Lula's main rival is Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is politically aligned with Trump.
