'Disgraceful': Trump ramps up criticism of Brazil election

US President Donald Trump on Thursday stepped up his criticism of Brazil's election, declining to say whether he recognised leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president after right-wing rival Flávio Bolsonaro claimed victory.

"I thought the election was a very great embarrassment to the people of Brazil. I watched the election, I didn't take sides. I let it be. I was asked not to take sides by the current president," said the Republican leader.

"I thought it was a very disgraceful situation for Brazil, Trump told reporters when asked if he accepted Lula's victory, a day after his ally Bolsonaro fled to the United States and proclaimed himself the rightful leader.

The Brazilian senator fled to the United States to start a self-imposed exile on Wednesday and insisted that he is his country's rightful leader despite his defeat in the presidential run-off.

"I think the election was a disgrace in Brazil," Trump told reporters when asked if he accepted incumbent Lula's victory, as the US leader headed on a midterms campaign trip.

"I don't want to comment on it right now, but I thought the election was a very great embarrassment to the people of Brazil," Trump added. 

"I watched the election. I let it be. I was asked not to take sides by the president, the current president. I didn't take sides, but when I watched what went down in Brazil, it was a disgrace."

Trump pointed to the reaction of the Brazilian stock market, which dropped after Lula's victory.

The US leader's stance appeared to have hardened from as recently as Wednesday, when he said Brazil's election was "very strange" but added that he "won't get involved" in Bolsonaro's claim to the presidency.

Bolsonaro's defiance on arrival in Florida on Wednesday signalled continued upheaval for Brazil, where Lula won a dramatic run-off election Sunday.

"I am the elected president, and the criminals who stole Brazil's election are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny," Bolsonaro said in the statement published on his X account, slamming "electoral fraud."

Trump's administration has strong links to Bolsonaro and his hard-right father Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest in Brazil after attempting to overturn his own electoral loss to Lula in 2022.

The US president's reaction has meanwhile sparked speculation about how he will react to a possible Republican loss of Congress in tight US midterm elections that take place next week.

Trump, 80, has ramped up allegations of election fraud, reviving memories of his baseless refusal to accept his 2020 election defeat and the subsequent attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.

Details of how Bolsonaro, accompanied by his wife and daughters, made it to US soil are still emerging. He is under investigation in his home country over alleged corruption and money-laundering. 

With his current parliamentary immunity about to expire, he was ordered to surrender his passports but left anyway, reaching the United States via Argentina and Ecuador.

In his statement, Flávio thanked Trump and Argentina's President Javier Milei for their assistance.

The US Department of Homeland Security – which under Trump has led a major campaign against what it calls an immigrant "invasion" from Latin America – said in a statement that the Bolsonaro family members were inspected and cleared "with applicable immigration laws and procedures."

Lula, who won Sunday's election with 51.8 percent of the vote, has called Bolsonaro's departure a "shameful" act.

– TIMES/AFP