{"id":218483,"date":"2026-07-27T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/brazil-denies-visas-to-us-officials-ahead-of-october-election-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:33:10","slug":"brazil-denies-visas-to-us-officials-ahead-of-october-election-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/brazil-denies-visas-to-us-officials-ahead-of-october-election-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil denies visas to US officials ahead of October election – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Trump administration officials were denied visas by Brazil ahead of a planned trip to the country this week, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry confirmed to USA TODAY on July 26.
Assistant Secretary Riley M. Barnes of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Samuel Samson were denied visas on July 24 for a trip scheduled to begin July 27, the ministry said. The ministry did not provide a reason for the visa denials.\u00a0
Multiple news outlets reported that Brazilian officials viewed the planned visit as an effort to cast doubt on the integrity of the country’s electoral system ahead of October’s presidential election. An unnamed Brazilian official told Reuters that the denial was based on “evidence pointing to a renewed attempt to politically exploit the situation and undermine the electoral system.”
The Washington Post, which first reported the visa denial,<\/a> quoted an unnamed Brazilian official as saying the trip was a “ploy” that was “incompatible with Brazilian democracy.”
The State Department stated to USA TODAY that Barnes and Samson were to travel to Brazil for what it said was a trip to discuss election integrity, religious freedom, and freedom of expression with government leaders and members of civil society. A department spokesperson called accusations of undermining the election a “baseless lie” in the email.
The Post described Samson as a promoter of President Donald Trump’s<\/a> policies abroad who has cultivated “ties to right-wing groups.”
Earlier this month, Trump imposed a 25% tariff<\/a> on some imports from Brazil, which Brazilian President Luiz Ina\u0301cio Lula da Silva called “unfair<\/a>” in an opinion column published by the Post on July 26.
The October 4 election sees Brazilian Senator Fla\u0301vio Bolsonaro face the incumbent Lula.
Bolsonaro is the son of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting to overturn the country’s 2022 election, which he lost to Lula, to remain in power. He was sentenced to\u00a027 years in prison.\u00a0
Jair Bolsonaro repeatedly questioned<\/a> the integrity of Brazil’s electoral system before the 2022 election, echoing claims made by Trump<\/a> before and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
At a July 21 event attended by dozens of diplomats, Fla\u0301vio Bolsonaro renewed criticism<\/a> of Brazil’s electoral system. The Brazilian senator urged foreign governments to send observers to monitor the country’s elections and claimed that Brazil’s electronic voting machines were produced by Smartmatic<\/a>, a company linked by Trump allies to allegations of electoral manipulation in Venezuela.
“I will not go into more details, but just to put on record that many of these machines that are used in the Brazilian elections are from the same company,” he said.
Both Smartmatic and\u00a0Brazil\u2019s electoral court stated to Reuters that no\u00a0Brazilian voting machines were supplied by the company. Fla\u0301vio Bolsonaro said in a statement to Reuters that he had not questioned “the integrity of\u00a0Brazil\u2019s voting system.”
Trump stated in a primetime speech earlier this month<\/a> that there was a “specific plot” to rig the 2020 Venezuelan presidential election in favor of incumbent President Nicolas Maduro. But a CIA report<\/a> released in conjunction with the speech concluded that while Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez “developed sustained interest and likely some capability” to manipulate voting machines, that intelligence “did not definitively confirm that large-scale electronic fraud was successfully executed in specific Venezuelan elections.”
Samson and Barnes had planned to meet with\u00a0Fla\u0301vio Bolsonaro, according to the New York Times.
Brazil recalled its ambassador to Argentina on July 26 after Argentinian President\u00a0Javier Milei\u00a0used a trip to the country to criticize Brazilian leaders and judiciary, the Foreign Ministry confirmed to USA TODAY.
Milei called Lula a “convict” and labeled the\u00a0Brazilian government “socialist trash” in a campaign event<\/a> with the younger Bolsonaro.
The self-described radical libertarian<\/a> is one of Trump’s closest Latin American allies. In October, the administration provided an economic lifeline to Argentina, in the form of a $20 billion currency swap,<\/a> as the country faced an economic crisis due to the instability of the Argentine peso.
The Foreign Ministry called Milei’s remarks “insults” in a statement to USA TODAY. The decision to recall\u00a0Ambassador Julio Bitelli was made after Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, consulted with Lula, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources.
Brazil and Argentina have a virtually non-existent diplomatic relationship. Milei has not sought an official meeting with Lula on either trip to\u00a0Brazil. The\u00a0Brazilian leader has not shown any interest in hosting him.
A Datafolha poll released on July 24 shows Lula ahead in a one-on-one runoff 48% to 43%.
Contributing: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Trump administration officials were denied visas by Brazil ahead of a planned trip to the country this week, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry confirmed to USA TODAY on July 26.Assistant Secretary Riley M. Barnes of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Samuel Samson were denied visas on July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}