A diplomatic crisis is hampering cooperation between the United States and Brazil in their joint fight against organized crime, according to American and Brazilian officials, a theme that the Trump administration has placed at the center of its Western Hemisphere agenda.
The U.S. State Department is withholding visas for two Brazilian Federal Police agents designated for postings in the United States, where they would work with Homeland Security Investigations and other American federal agencies in the fight against transnational crimes. The information comes from an American and three Brazilian senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
In response, Brazil has also begun blocking the visa of a U.S. public safety officer who would be assigned to work in the country, according to the same American and Brazilian sources.
The U.S. government, citing a busy schedule, also rejected a request for a visit by agents from Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service and Customs who investigate money laundering and weapon smuggling linked to international narcotics-trafficking factions, according to two other Brazilian officials.
Brazil and the United States have a long history of joint investigations into international crimes, such as fraud and trafficking, as well as reciprocal sending of public safety agents. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had an attaché in Brazil for more than two decades.
In the past, joint actions between the two countries helped authorities dismantle international corruption schemes, piracy networks, and human trafficking organizations.
This kind of close cooperation, according to experts, has become increasingly essential in the fight against narcotics-trafficking factions in Latin America, which today have more resources and geographic reach than ever.
“Today, criminal factions know no borders,” said Edvandir Felix de Paiva, president of the Brazilian Federal Police delegates association. “That’s why we need to work together.”
The recent disruptions in cooperation, revealed here for the first time, occur in a context of relations already strained over the past year, stemming from attempts by U.S. President Donald Trump to interfere in domestic Brazilian affairs. The friction has deepened in recent months in light of the apparent willingness of the U.S. government to help Flávio Bolsonaro, a right-wing candidate who is contesting the October election in Brazil against leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The fight against transnational criminal factions has become a top priority for the Trump administration, which has joined forces with Latin American countries led by conservative leaders on this front. But the diplomatic strain may be compromising cooperation between the United States and Brazil, the hemisphere’s two most populous nations.
“The perception is that U.S. security policy toward Brazil has been contaminated by politics,” said Robert Muggah, security expert and research director at the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian-based research organization. “That didn’t lead to a definitive rupture,” he added, “but it introduced new complexities into the relationship and smeared it with distrust.”
The U.S. State Department did not comment on visa details, but said in a note that the Trump administration is protecting “the nation and its citizens by maintaining the highest standards of national security and public safety in our visa issuance process.” The department added that it will continue working with Brazil to advance “longstanding shared interests.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said, in a statement, that it is committed to maintaining dialogue with Brazilian authorities to advance “security goals and the fight against transnational crime.”
Brazil’s Federal Police and the Itamaraty (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) did not comment on the matter. The ministry, which oversees the agency that handles customs, revenue, and border control in the country, said that the two countries maintain a dialogue focused on exchanging best practices and combating transnational crime.
The two Federal Police officers who had not yet obtained visas were scheduled to assume their posts in Miami and New York last month, according to Brazilian officials. They had already been selected and approved by authorities in both countries earlier in the year as part of routine staffing renewals, one source said.
One of the police attachés would replace Marcelo Ivo de Carvalho, expelled from the United States in April after being accused by the Trump administration of suffering “political persecution” because of his role in the arrest of a former head of Brazilian intelligence. The former head had fled to the United States after being convicted of planning a coup in Brazil alongside former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro, an ally of Trump, is serving a 27-year sentence for his attempt to stay in power. In response to Carvalho’s expulsion, Brazil revoked the credentials of a U.S. public-safety agent who worked in Brasília, the capital of the country.
In another reciprocity move, Brazil is now withholding the visa of the substitute for that American agent until its own police attachés are authorized to take up their posts in the United States, according to two senior Brazilian officials. The authorities of the two countries are still negotiating the visa issue, according to American and Brazilian sources.
A team of nearly ten agents from Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service and Customs also requested, in June, to visit their American counterparts in Washington, in a recent effort to expand cooperation in combating money laundering and cross-border contraband. But U.S. authorities declined the request, citing a full schedule through November, according to the two Brazilian sources.
Under a new intelligence-sharing system implemented this year, customs agents from both countries had been alerting one another to suspicious cargo in containers, which helped U.S. and Brazilian authorities intercept illicit shipments, such as weapons, according to one of the sources.
Experts say Brazilian organized crime groups use the American banking system to launder funds from illicit activities. The United States is also a major source of illegal weapons for these groups, smuggled from states with more permissive gun laws. Last month, Brazilian police arrested two men linked to sending gun parts shipped by mail from Florida.
Over the past year, in various meetings and calls, including a meeting on August 21, Lula has been advocating with Trump for closer cooperation in the fight against organized crime.
In a White House meeting in May, Lula presented a proposal on how the two countries could jointly fight narcotics factions, targeting their weapons and finances, according to a Brazilian official. The Trump administration never responded to the proposal, the source said.
In the same month, the United States moved forward with designating Brazil’s two largest criminal factions as terrorist organizations, after intense lobbying by Flávio Bolsonaro and his allies, who accuse Lula of being indulgent toward crime. Public safety is a central concern for a large portion of Brazilians and a core issue in the October presidential election.
The full effect of this American designation is not yet clear, but it has already caused at least one setback in police investigations. The United States used the designation to impose sanctions on people who were already secretly being investigated by the Brazilian police, which exposed their links to the factions and alerted the targets to the ongoing investigation. As a result, Brazilian police had to accelerate the arrests of the suspects.
At the same time, Washington has sought to strengthen cooperation with conservative leaders across the Hemisphere through Shield of the Americas, a new security alliance against drug trafficking of which Brazil is not a member. Some member countries, such as Ecuador and Colombia, have already agreed to conduct joint military operations with the United States on their territories.
Last month, Brazil was also not invited to a U.S.-led meeting at the United Nations headquarters that gathered security authorities from Latin America and the Caribbean.
The diplomatic friction between Brazil and the United States has intensified in recent months, with a string of further visa refusals and cancellations.
Yet, although the Trump administration has sought to use visas as part of its strategy to assert influence in Latin America, this approach could end up driving Brazil further away.
“We want Brazil to be closer to the United States, not farther away,” said Jimmy Story, former U.S. ambassador and co-founder of Global Frontier Advisors, a consulting firm. “And this type of diplomacy has the opposite effect.”
© 2026 The New York Times Company
