Explaining Brazil

Amid deepening polarization and the judiciary’s growing role in the country’s political life, Brazil’s Supreme Court has become accustomed to being rated poorly by a significant share of the population.In recent years, most of that opposition has come from the far right, which saw the court as a barrier to its onslaught on democracy — including the attempted coup following the 2022 election.The problem now is that the dissatisfaction has become widespread — and is being driven precisely by a justice who was central to preserving democracy during the coup attempt saga: Alexandre de Moraes.According to polling institute Quaest, 66% of Brazilians said that, come October’s elections, they would consider voting for Senate candidates who promise to seek the impeachment of Supreme Court justices.That survey was conducted amid the ongoing Banco Master scandal, which has raised corruption suspicions involving a wide range of Brazilian authorities across all branches of government, particularly members of the judiciary

Humanity has entered what scientists are calling an “era of water bankruptcy.” According to the United Nations University, many critical water systems around the world are so overused — through depletion, overallocation, land and soil degradation, deforestation, and pollution, all compounded by climate change — that they can no longer be restored. At the same time, global warming and the spread of artificial intelligence promise to dramatically increase demand for water and clean energy across a wide range of countries.In this complex scenario, Brazil is in a privileged position, being home to more than 12 percent of the world’s fresh water, and an electricity matrix that is more than 55 percent hydropower-based. But does an abundance of river basins truly translate into water security?As it stands, Brazil is in a relatively comfortable position to ensure water supply for homes, industries, and crops, as well as the functioning of its hydropower plants. Water availability is also a crucial asset for the count

Advances in oil exploration and the construction of railways and highways in recent years have shown that, when large infrastructure projects clash with matters of Amazon preservation, the Brazilian government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tends to favor the former. Some call this progress; others see it as ultimately self-defeating in the face of the ongoing climate emergency. But this week, the usual script of Brazilian developmentalism trumping environmentalism was turned on its head, and on the Amazonian Tapajós River in Pará state, environmentalist forces prevailed.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

190,000 points. After a string of record highs that have been piling up since mid-January, the Ibovespa — the benchmark index of São Paulo’s stock exchange, the B3 — surpassed this historic threshold during Wednesday, February 11, closing the day just shy of it.Financial trading volume totaled BRL 38.6 billion, or about USD 7.7 billion. With this result, and only six weeks into the year, Ibovespa has already posted gains of over 18% in 2026.To give a sense of the scale, stock exchange data on foreign investor flows show a net inflow of BRL 26.3 billion in January alone — exceeding the surplus recorded for the entire year of 2025.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Brasília is back to work — and the new legislative year has opened with all the familiar rituals: lofty speeches about stability, institutional balance, and dialogue, plus promises of an ambitious agenda ahead.But this is no ordinary year.Brazil is heading into a high-stakes election in October. Voters will choose a president, renew the entire House, elect two-thirds of the Senate, pick 27 governors, and decide the fate of hundreds of state legislators. From now on, everything in Brasília will be filtered through the election calendar — what Congress dares to vote on, what the government is willing to push forward, and even how and when Supreme Court justices make their moves.And looming over all of it is a growing source of anxiety.Hovering above the capital is the Banco Master case — an investigation lawmakers privately describe as unpredictable, corrosive, and potentially explosive. We touched on it last week, but its shadow is only getting longer.Since Operation Car Wash erupted in 2014, Congress has not

As the saying goes, the calm comes before the storm. In Brazil’s Supreme Court, the current crisis came after a period of glory and renown.In September 2025, the Supreme Court made history and became a global reference. Breaking with Brazil’s long tradition of impunity for military interference in politics, the court analyzed a wealth of evidence and convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and top-ranking military officers for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 election.That same month, Edson Fachin took office as the Supreme Court Chief Justice and quickly expressed his desire to create a code of conduct for members of the top court. Apparent conflicts of interest involving justices are common — and preventing them is also a way to strengthen the rule of law.In December, however, the court was pulled into the swirling scandal involving Banco Master — a mid-sized lender that was liquidated amid suspicions of fraud involving billions of reais. The bank’s owner, Daniel Vorcaro, has ties to state governor

Amid a global context of eroding multilateralism and rising US trade wars, Mercosur and the European Union are trying to create a shared market for more than 700 million people. The proposed free trade zone for goods and services encompasses 27 European countries, plus Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on the other side of the Atlantic, with Bolivia in the process of joining as well. Combined, the economies involved in the deal make up for approximately 20% of global GDP.The deal was finally signed on January 17, after more than 26 years of back-and-forth negotiations. But yet again, European farming countries are doing whatever they can to stall its implementation. On January 21, European lawmakers backed a resolution to seek an opinion from the EU’s Court of Justice on whether the free-trade deal complies with existing EU treaties.That could stall the deal by up to two years — although the agreement’s backers, such as Germany, are trying to go ahead and implement it on a provisional basis until the co

Lula did not recognize Maduro’s 2024 election win, but his first two terms in office in the 2000s saw him make South American integration a top priority of Brazil’s foreign policy, and maintain close ties with the Hugo Chavez government of the time.Venezuela held the world’s largest oil reserves. It was a country with limited development in other sectors, highly dependent on imports, and eager to challenge a US-led world order. Brazil, meanwhile, had industrial goods, construction companies looking to expand abroad, and ambitions to lead the political rise of the Global South. The partnership had the potential to be highly fruitful.Since then, however, much has changed in both countries, and ambitious regional integration projects have stalled. Now the United States is once again pulling Venezuela back into its sphere of influence, and away from China and Russia — and Brazil appears to have little room to maneuver.To understand Brazil-Venezuela relations in the 21st century — including the economic and politi

In Latin America, 2026 quite literally got off to an explosive start.Just before sunrise on January 2, the city of Caracas was violently awoken by the sound of bombs, as US forces launched a sudden, high-intensity strike on the Venezuelan capital. Within hours, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were in American custody — flown out of the country and headed to New York to face criminal charges.The Venezuelan government has provided no official death count from the strikes, but they are believed to be in the dozens — at least 40, per some accounts.Even by Washington’s standards, this was extraordinary. But it aligns neatly with Washington’s new worldview.In its latest National Security Strategy, the US no longer frames Latin America as a partner. Instead, the US describes it as a buffer — a region expected to stop migrants, narcotics and Chinese influence before they reach US shores.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

In any democratic republic, it’s normal for the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to clash. That’s a sign of mutual oversight. It’s also normal for politicians to make concessions to their adversaries. That’s a sign of democracy.But the sequence of recent events in Brazilian politics has turned into a sweeping narrative about what happens when these dynamics of checks and balances slide into sheer revanchism and bargaining over the rule of law.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

In a country with 27 state governments, more than 5,000 city halls, and around 12 million people working in the public sector, calls to reform — or improve — Brazil’s civil service never really seem to go away.We talked to Brazil's special secretary for state transformation — and asked him to compare the reform proposals coming from the lower house with the Lula administration's approach. Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Carlos Nobre, head of the Planetary Science Pavilion at COP30 in the Amazon, talks to us about the conference’s results, the climate emergency we are living through, and what Brazil can still do.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Five years ago, Brazil launched a public digital payment infrastructure — and its impact on the financial market and society has been immense.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Over the past decade, Brazilian lawmakers have steadily built up procedures to expand their powers over the purse. That has included increasing the overall volume of congressional grants; making a large share of them mandatory spending; limiting the Executive’s discretion over when to release those funds, and creating ways to erase transparency and traceability from the process. A perfect recipe for corruption, which has now trickled down to state and municipal levels.But the Supreme Court has just ordered the three branches of government to run a nationwide awareness campaign — from December through March — to explain how congressional grants are executed. The idea: show the public where they can access information about these amendments, teach people how to track where the money goes, and encourage them to report irregularities or wrongdoing. Will that finally be enough?Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Each passing year, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) gains more urgency. More and more biomes around the world are approaching what scientists call tipping points — the Amazon chief among them. Hosting the 30th edition of COP in Belém, one of the Amazon’s biggest cities, therefore represents one of the most significant responsibilities Brazil’s diplomacy has taken on in recent times. This week, we are joined by experts with distinct and diverse backgrounds to discuss the climate challenges facing Brazil and the world ahead of COP30. They are:Adriana Ramos: Executive Secretary of the Socio-Environmental Institute, a civil society organization that monitors indigenous lands and other environmentally protected areas across Brazil, working both with governments and on the ground. She represented the Brazilian Forum of NGOs on the Amazon Fund Steering Committee from 2008 to 2013 and served on the Executive Board of the Brazilian Association of NGOs.Carlos Nobre: One of the world’s leading climatol

Justice Luís Roberto Barroso is retiring. We unpack how factors such as trust, political ties, and electoral considerations may guide President Lula’s next choice for the court. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

President Lula’s popularity has risen. We examine how this might impact the political landscape ahead of the next presidential election. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Brazil’s Congress is discussing a proposal for income tax reform. Backed by the Lula administration, the bill seeks to make the country’s system more progressive. But just how unequal are taxes in Brazil? This week, we host economist Davi Bhering, who co-authored a Paris School of Economics study on Brazil’s tax income system. In our newly released episode of the Explaining Brazil podcast, he unpacks:  Why Brazil’s income inequality may be higher than previously estimated.How the Brazilian system’s regressivity compares to other countries.Why his findings may indicate that global inequality is higher than anticipated.Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.Send us your feedbackSupport the show

Crowds on Sunday fanned out across Brazil’s 27 state capitals to denounce two measures moving through Congress: a constitutional amendment proposal that would essentially shield lawmakers from prosecution, and a bill that could forgive or soften penalties for those convicted of a coup attempt masterminded by former President Jair Bolsonaro and his acolytes.The demonstrations, initially organized in a spontaneous, online fashion and later embraced by left-of-center parties, were notable not only for their scale but also for how they reframed Brazil’s political symbolism and fault lines.Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.Support the show

A massive police operation exposed how deep Brazil's largest criminal organization has penetrated the legitimate economy.Rafael Alcadipani, a professor at the FGV’s School of Public Administration and a member of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, unpacks: How the PCC evolved into a mafia-like organization, with multiple economic activities.The impacts of this expansion on democracy.Brazil’s federal and state-level capacity to combat organized crime.How the United States might play a role — and the risks. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on The Brazilian Report.Support the show