The real conflict with Brasilia is about the danger America senses from Brazil being able to build an accumulation that would allow it to be an independent center of field in South America, in cooperation with both China and Russia, which the United States cannot afford.
Afrasianet - Ahmed Sabri Al Sayed Ali - Brazilians say in a popular phrase: "God is Brazilian" (Deus é brasileiro). This is not meant in a direct religious sense, but rather in the rarity of Brazil's fortune and the fact that circumstances are often in its favor. But this popular expression seems to be taking on a more interesting geopolitical meaning today: Brazil finds itself at a historical moment in which its abundance of resources, its breadth and its transatlantic location intersect with a global crisis in energy, corridors, and trade.
On March 5, 2026, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stood at the headquarters of U.S. Southern Command in Florida to announce what he described as a "new strategic map" drawn by President Donald Trump. The map was not just a redefinition of the concept of U.S. security, but an attempt to redraw the geographic area that Washington considers part of its immediate security perimeter.
The U.S. War Department has dubbed this concept "Greater North America," and according to Hexteth's definition, it includes every country and territory north of the equator, from Greenland to Ecuador, and from Alaska to Guyana, while South America south of the equator is treated as the area that should have greater responsibility for protecting the South Atlantic and South Pacific in cooperation with the United States.
Higseth's choice of the Amazon and the Andes as geographic barriers was not a passing detail. The new U.S. rhetoric redefines the Western Hemisphere in terms of geographic scope, corridors, infrastructure, and resources, and places the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, ports, and strategic facilities at the heart of U.S. security.
More importantly, Hegseth spoke openly about confronting forces that are trying to "displace the historic North-South relationship in the Americas" in favor of what he called the "Global South," and about the need to regain control of the region's infrastructure and strategic corridors.
It is precisely here that Brazil becomes the real problem for Washington. The issue between the two parties is not just the disagreement between Lula's government and the Trump administration, nor the ideological difference between the left and the right. The problem, in fact, is that Brazil has the scope, resources, and accumulation that allows it to become an independent center of the sphere in South America. Therefore, the reconstruction of the American sphere in the western half cannot be complete without influencing Brazil's direction.
Brazil can no longer treat the United States as an outside power with which the dispute can be managed by traditional diplomatic means. What has been going on in Latin America since the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, the escalation toward Cuba, and the pressure on governments and elections to push the right to power reveals a frantic American attempt to rebuild the space that Washington has lost much of its ability to control.
At the heart of this conflict is Brazil, which is currently surrounded by right-wing or American-tamed governments, as it is the only country in South America that has the geographical, demographic, industrial, economic, and political size that allows it to transform decision-making into a real and influential regional sphere in its surroundings.
The U.S. operation in Venezuela in January 2026 was a turning point. The U.S. did not stop with sanctions and political pressure, but also carried out a military operation that toppled and arrested the government of Nicolás Maduro, and then Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would run Venezuela during the transition. Lula responded that the operation crossed an "unacceptable line" and that it represented a serious assault on Venezuela's sovereignty and a dangerous precedent for the international order. The significance of the event for Brazil lies not in its position on Maduro, but in the fact that an outside power has become using military force to rearrange the status of a country located directly within the geographical territory of South America.
Therefore, Brasilia did not view Venezuela only as a Venezuelan crisis. If Washington could overthrow a government in Caracas by force, the South American region itself would be renegotiated by force. Cuba is moving in the same direction. Washington has increased economic and military pressure on the island, and during the year there have been reports of U.S. military options being considered against it. Although examining options does not imply deciding to invade, the Cuban dossier's transition to the level of military planning reveals that Cuba has become part of an attempt to reassert U.S. control over the Caribbean.
For Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba are not two separate files; they are signs of the same trend: the rebuilding of the American sphere in the Western Hemisphere, at a time when Latin American countries are becoming more connected to China, Russia, Iran, and India.
The real conflict with Brasilia is therefore about the danger that America senses that Brazil is able to build an accumulation that will allow it to be an independent center of field in South America, in cooperation with both China and Russia, which the United States cannot afford.
This is where the Brazilian elections come directly into the conflict. Argentina appears in this equation as the most obvious regional link. Javier Mille, Trump's most prominent ally in South America, traveled to Brazil in July to co-sponsor the candidacy of Flavio Bolsonaro, presenting the Brazilian battle as part of the regional confrontation between the right and the left.
The conflict even went beyond overt political support. Brasilia and Washington were at loggerheads over U.S. attempts to interfere in the debate over the integrity of elections and Brazil's electoral system, while Lula declared that his country would not accept foreign interference in its elections.
But the American problem is that Brazil enters this battle and is in a different economic situation than most South American countries. The Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb crises have raised the value of energy, food, and natural resources, and Brazil has all three. During the first half of 2026, its exports increased by 11%, with more than half of the increase driven by China, especially oil, meat and soybeans, while its trade surplus increased by about 40%.
More importantly, this power is not based on oil alone. Brazil has a large industrial base, a huge agriculture, mining, a huge internal market, and an expanding oil sector. Petrobras' production in the second quarter of 2026 was about 2.7 million barrels per day, while its oil exports were close to one million barrels per day. In September, Brazil's trade surplus since the beginning of the year was about $58.7 billion, an increase of nearly 37% from the same period last year.
This is where the Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb crises become particularly important. Brazil has already been hit by the disruption of the corridors because it relies on imported fertilizers, but the damage does not negate its comparative advantage: it is a huge agricultural, industrial, and oil powerhouse, geographically far from the center of the conflict, with Atlantic ports and extensive trade relations with Asia.
The Bab al-Mandeb turmoil raises the cost of sea routes and increases the importance of the Cape of Good Hope route, which raises the relative value of Brazil's Atlantic domain.
If the Hormuz crisis continues for a long time, the problem for Argentina will be even greater. Argentina benefited from higher Vaca Muerta revenues, with exports rising 22.9 percent to $58.4 billion in the first seven months of 2026, and a trade surplus of $16.1 billion.
But the composition of its trade reveals greater dependence on abroad, with China providing 22.5 percent of its imports, Brazil 21.6 percent, and Argentina recording trade deficits with both countries.
Argentina has oil, but it needs to import a large part of the inputs that turn that oil into production and accumulation. Brazil has oil, food, minerals, industry, and the internal market all at once.
Therefore, the appreciation of resources does not produce the accumulation itself. In Argentina, oil revenues can quickly be converted into imports from China, Brazil, and others; in Brazil, a larger part of the value can remain within the national economic sphere.
This is even more important if Iran can establish itself as a de facto controlling power in the Strait of Hormuz. The crisis is not just about oil, but also about fertilizers, gas, chemicals, helium, and entire industrial chains. Argentina needs a lot of these inputs. Brazil, despite its need for fertilizers, has a broader production base and political and economic channels with China, Russia, and Iran, and through the BRICS, the political and financial framework is provided that allows these relations to connect.
So it can deal with an area that has resources or corridors from a stronger negotiating position than a country that relies primarily on the external market.
Argentina, on the other hand, faces another domestic problem related to the Milli model. The Argentine government has reduced state liabilities and public spending and expanded the space for private capital, while trying to turn Vaca Muerta and the Patagonia Plateau into huge platforms for export and investment.
This model has generated a trade surplus and an improvement in some indicators, but it opens up a direct social question: Who gets the accumulation produced by Argentine resources?
The region has become a hub for oil, gas, and renewable energy projects, and is being promoted as the site of large data centers linked to the AI boom.
If the AI boom continues, Argentina could get huge investments in energy and computing; but if the bubble bursts or the industry enters a sharp correction phase, part of the bet on data centers could evaporate before it turns into a permanent physical accumulation. The infrastructure and privileges designed to receive foreign capital then become a source of new political conflict.
Patagonia is already turning into an arena of conflict over ownership of the domain itself, with protests over property and land policies and disputes over the lands of indigenous communities.
The slogan "Homeland is not for sale" that appeared in the 2026 protests signaled the transition of the conflict from a protest over an economic policy to a deeper question about Patagonia's resources and whether it will turn into a national Argentine accumulation, or a platform for extracting energy, land, and resources for outside capital.
The difference between the two models is clearly visible. The Lula government uses state tools, especially Petrobras , social spending, credit, and industrial investment, to recycle part of the revenues of resources within society. Milley's model prioritizes the reduction of the state and the reopening of the way for private capital.
Therefore, the increase in the value of resources does not guarantee the same outcome in both countries; rather, the way in which the accumulation is distributed will determine the amount of social power that results from it.
The struggle over Brazil is therefore essentially a struggle over who determines the direction of accumulation within South America's largest possible independent sphere.
The United States is trying to rebuild its sphere by pressuring Venezuela, Cuba, leftist and nationalist governments hostile to its hegemony, through a network of right-wing governments, political and economic pressure on Brazil, and using Argentina as a regional ally.
But the irony is that these same pressures are pushing Brazil to expand its alternatives by strengthening relations with China, Russia, Iran, and the BRICS countries in general, and independence from the American sphere is shifting from a political position to a direct economic interest.
In other words, the real danger that America fears is that Brazil will be able to gradually dispense with the American sphere's monopoly on the sources of its accumulation.
This is the battle to come in South America: Can Washington bring Brazil back into its sphere before the new Brazilian accumulation becomes a fully independent sphere?
Argentina, the United States' most prominent ally, despite its vast oil wealth, still faces a more difficult question that is circulating between the right and the left: Will its resources be diverted to domestic national accumulation, or will the revenues be turned into a new demand for the accumulation produced by others?
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