Brazil’s elites have long treated drug violence as inevitable – like 19th-century slavery. But with banks and gas stations now feeling the pinch, will national pride finally force action where moral outrage never could?

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In Um rio chamado Atlântico [A River Called Atlantic], the Brazilian diplomat and Africanist Alberto da Costa e Silva (1931 – 1923) addresses the history of the end of the slave trafficking in Brazil in a very interesting way. As is known, England in the 19th century positioned herself as the moral bulwark of the world, and this included a true crusade against the transatlantic slave trade. On the other hand, Brazil, according to our Africanist, was dependent on the forced immigration of Africans to populate this vast territory, given the small size of Portugal and the precarious technical condition of the Amerindians.

That English humanitarianism was merely a pretext, no one serious can doubt. After all, one only needs to see how inhumane the British chartered company’s dominion over India was, or consider the fact that English sympathies leaned towards the South during the American Civil War. From an economic standpoint, there is the issue of the competitiveness of Brazilian sugar produced by slave labor, but the most important thing, according to Costa e Silva, was this: the financial suffocation of the free African kingdoms.

Since the African kingdoms capitalized in the 19th century by selling slaves to the Americas, closing the Atlantic would cause these kingdoms to collapse, and thus, English merchants could try to replicate there the model of domination implemented in India. And, in fact, after the closing of the Atlantic, some African leaders began to imitate the Anglo-American plantation model to sell palm oil to the English, who used it for purposes as diverse as soap making and public lighting. The slave trade to the Americas ended and was replaced by African domestic slavery.

According to Alberto da Costa e Silva, the slave trafficking ended in Brazil because Brazil wanted it to. Even today, in the 21st century, we use in Brazil the expression “so that the English can see it”. The origin of this expression is the Feijó Law of 1831, a law of the Empire of Brazil that prohibited the transatlantic slave trade, imitating the English law of 1807. Brazil had been pressured by England to pass such a law since its Independence (1822). However, since the Brazilian authorities did not want to end this slave trade, the law was simply not applied: it was made so that the English can see it. To this day, Brazilians say that such a thing is “so that the English can see it” when they want to say that it is an empty formality. The slave trafficking in Brazil ended when Brazil wanted it to end. This occurred in 1850, when Brazil approved the Eusébio de Queiroz Law. From this, Alberto da Costa e Silva concludes: the trade ended because Brazil wanted it to end, and not because England wanted it to.

I have doubts. What would have happened if England had not pressured Brazil to end the slave trade? It’s impossible to answer historical counterfactual questions with certainty, but it seems to me that English arrogance, pointing the finger at us, may very well have driven our ancestors to action. After all, Brazilian society is both proud and conformist: we can spend decades complaining about the same problems as if for sport, but if a foreigner points the finger at us, then we become truly outraged.

Slavery was never a beautiful thing in Brazil. In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell contrasted the reaction of the Ottoman and Brazilian peoples to the end of slavery: there, with revolt and protest; here, with public celebrations. In the 19th century, there were even those who imported scientific racism from Protestant countries to justify slavery – but, as Costa e Silva showed, both the pro- and anti-slavery sides had arguments for and against Negroes. Just as there were those who defended the end of slavery because they believed that Negroes did not deserve such a fate, there were those who wanted to end slavery hoping to purge Brazil of Negroes (in the same way that Anglophones created Sierra Leone and Liberia to “return” them to Africa). On the other hand, there were those who justified slavery based on white superiority, but also those who thought that the influence of Negroes in Brazil was too beneficial for slavery, however bad, to have an immediate end.

Given that most of Brazil was illiterate and had no reason to adhere to the racist fashions of the educated, and given that the Brazilian population actually celebrated Abolition (1888) en masse after a large public campaign against the interests of a slave-owning minority, we can assume that the latter position – simultaneously anti-racist and resigned to slavery – reflected Brazilian common sense. I believe that, without external pressure to offend our pride, we could still be lamenting the wickedness of slavery while saying that it was necessary. Furthermore, just 5 years before the Eusébio de Queiroz Law, England passed the Aberdeen Act, which authorized their navy to seize Brazilian ships suspected of slave trafficking. It was an offense, and it was also a cause of losses, since it made the cost of imported slaves unsustainable.

It seems unlikely, then, that just five years later, and with the increased cost of imported slaves, Brazil would have decided on its own to end the trade. It does not follow, however, that England is a saint and that the Aberdeen Act did not harm Brazil in a dishonest way. As Alberto da Costa e Silva reports, Brazil had already developed legitimate trade with the free African kingdoms (which sold us palm oil and fabrics), but England ended up closing the Atlantic.

I think this situation is similar to that of present-day Brazil with drug trafficking and Donald Trump pointing the finger at us. Almost every Brazilian agrees that urban violence caused by drug trafficking is a major problem, and that the territorial control exercised by factions is a very wrong thing. (I say almost every, because there is always the delusional leftist.) However, the elites treat the problem as if it were a phenomenon as natural as rain: Brazilians complain and have no prospect of solving the problem. In Brazil, Marxism ended up translating into a kind of scientific conformism, in which the sociologist looks at the ills and explains why everything is the way it is – in the same way that an English social Darwinist proceeded in the face of the ills of the poor.

Like 19th-century England, Donald Trump is far from being a saint. He has already shown that he feels entitled to invade countries under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, and the U.S. experience in Colombia, Ecuador, and Afghanistan gives no rational reason for Brazilians to root for armed intervention thinking that this will put an end to drug trafficking. The United States also does not seem committed to ending drug trafficking on its own soil, since it has a colossal surveillance capacity and continues to be the largest consumer of cocaine on the planet. (It is true that U.S. population is large, but it doesn’t compare to China’s. It’s noteworthy that two English-speaking countries – Australia and New Zealand – are the largest per capita consumers according to the UN.)

Just like the Aberdeen Act, the classification by the United States of the two largest Brazilian transnational drug trafficking organizations – the PCC of São Paulo and the Red Commando of Rio de Janeiro – as terrorist organizations certainly stirs the pride of Brazilians. Only a delusional middle-class leftist will claim that this classification is inappropriate. Even so, Brazil has an idiotic anti-terrorism law, made with the purpose of considering terrorism only actions motivated by politically incorrect ideas (see here). By this law, it is impossible to consider PCC and Red Commando terrorist organizations – even though PCC already caused panic in the state of São Paulo in 2006, and there are no nice explanations for the attacks having ceased. Just as Brazil did not end the slave trade in 1830 because it did not want to, Brazil does not end the drug traffickers’ empire today because it does not want to.

Brazil has never considered the PCC a terrorist organization, but the new classification has already prompted Lula to publish an “Administration Note” on his official Twitter profile alluding to the PCC and Red Commando as entities that “practice terrorism in the territories where millions of families live.” I have no record of a note from a PT (Workers’ Party) federal administration alluding to drug traffickers in these terms. The government is then in a complicated position to say that the PCC and Red Commando are organizations that practice terrorism that intimidates millions of families but are not terrorist organizations. And even more: that Brazil is a sovereign country in which non-terrorist organizations practice terrorism against millions of families, because this sovereign country does not have sovereignty over large portions of its own territory! After all, the government’s rhetoric is that Trump’s attack against these organizations is an attack on Brazilian sovereignty orchestrated by Bolsonaristas who betrayed the homeland, since the announcement of the measure occurred shortly after Flávio Bolsonaro’s visit to the White House.

But there is a great dissimilarity between the slave trafficking and the drug trafficking empire: slavery in general is a millennial institution, and the transatlantic trade in particular was as old as Brazil itself. It was reasonable for Brazilians to think that slavery was inevitable, because its end contradicted all previous experience. The drug trafficking empire, on the other hand, is only about 20 years old for most of Brazil. I am only 36 years old and I remember a time when there were no crack addicts: a completely different reality, which seems like a utopia to today’s teenagers. Furthermore, slavery in 19th-century urban Brazil allowed for social ascension, and slaves could realistically dream of freedom and enrichment. The drug trafficking empire, however, haunts Brazilians as long as they are in a Brazilian large city: even if they become rich and leave the slums, they could lose their lives at any moment to a stray bullet, or to a crack addict who stabs them in the street for no reason.

Therefore, the role of the mystifying sociologist is important among us. The rhetoric of Open Society and Ford Foundation – the racist rhetoric that insists on blackness as essentially linked to crime and drug addiction – presents the drug trafficking empire as natural and inevitable. One good thing about Trump’s classification is that now the sectors of the Brazilian economy that were bothered are starting to show their faces: banks, fintechs, and gas stations.

Hopefully, these sectors will now feel ashamed, and Brazil will finally decide to end the drug trafficking empire in its national territory.

Não se trata, no Brasil, de uma disputa entre um campo político anti-EUA e um campo político pró-EUA, mas de uma disputa entre dois setores políticos que querem o apoio dos EUA para governarem o Brasil.

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No dia 5 de junho de 2026, o Departamento de Estado dos EUA confirmou a inclusão das duas maiores organizações narcotraficantes do Brasil – o Comando Vermelho (CV) e o Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) – na lista de organizações consideradas terroristas pelos EUA. O motivo principal alegado seria o fato de que as operações de ambas organizações teriam passado a afetar os EUA e envolveriam pelo menos alguns elos estadunidenses, enquanto o objetivo com essa categorização seria facilitar o uso de mecanismos econômico-financeiros para estrangular essas organizações, especialmente no que concerne sua capacidade de lavar e movimentar dinheiro usando instituições financeiras internacionais.

Oficialmente, com essa medida, todas as instituições bancárias e financeiras dos EUA, automaticamente, congelariam os bens e recursos de quaisquer indivíduos ou empresas ligadas às organizações em questão. Simultaneamente, eles não conseguiriam transferir recursos utilizando instituições estadunidenses ou ligadas aos EUA. Ainda, os EUA passariam a ter mecanismos para pressionar instituições bancárias e financeiras estrangeiras para que, também, congelassem bens e recursos e deixassem de autorizar movimentações e transferências.

No Brasil, oficialmente, a designação é vista como, em primeiro lugar, um artifício visando legitimar eventuais interferências diretas ou indiretas (sejam de teor político, financeiro, jurídico, eleitoral, etc.) no país; e, em segundo lugar, como um equívoco teórico, já que se considera que as organizações narcotraficantes não podem ser categorizadas como terroristas, por definição, por elas estarem supostamente privadas de uma dimensão política ou religiosa. A figura do “narcoterrorismo”, assim, é vista como mera narrativa legitimadora de intervenções.

Para complicar a equação, porém, essa semana, o instituto AtlasIntel divulgou uma pesquisa que indica que 53% da população brasileira apoia a decisão dos EUA, uma parcela superior até mesmo à dos apoiadores de Bolsonaro (41,8%, conforme o mesmo instituto), o que representa um problema significativo para Lula, bem como um calcanhar de Aquiles fácil de ser explorado.

O próprio Flávio Bolsonaro reivindica, junto com seu irmão Eduardo, a responsabilidade por convencer Donald Trump e Marco Rubio a tomarem essa decisão. Se for verdade, a jogada é inteligente. Flávio Bolsonaro sofreu um impacto significativo em suas intenções de voto após revelações de uma conexão bastante próxima com o banqueiro e especulador brasileiro Daniel Vorcaro, preso ano passado e acusado de envolvimento com inúmeros esquemas fraudulentos e criminosos que movimentaram bilhões em dólares em parceria com diversos políticos (do governo e da oposição) e juízes. Mas ao transferir o foco midiático para o problema da segurança pública, Bolsonaro coloca Lula numa área na qual ele reiteradamente comete erros estúpidos e impopulares.

É que como com todos os políticos liberal-progressistas, Lula e seu partido defendem uma narrativa segundo a qual traficantes, ladrões e assassinos seriam “vítimas da sociedade”, que deveriam ser “reeducados” e não combatidos, em vez de vê-los como parasitas sociais que precisam ser extirpados da face da terra. Reiteradamente, Lula já se referiu a criminosos como “coitados” que só roubam para “tomar uma cervejinha”, e recentemente disse que traficantes eram “vítimas” dos “usuários”. Como não poderia deixar de ser, assim que soube da decisão dos EUA, Lula disse em público que estava “muito triste” pelos “nossos criminosos” serem considerados terroristas.

Para que se entenda a seriedade do problema de segurança pública no Brasil, é necessário apontar que aproximadamente 20% da população brasileira vive em territórios sob controle direto de organizações criminosas. Essa semana mesmo, num bairro de uma cidade periférica próxima ao Rio de Janeiro, membros do CV assumiram o controle de um condomínio e impuseram uma “taxa de moradia” a todos os moradores. Poucos anos atrás, na região Nordeste, uma pequena cidade inteira foi evacuada por ordem de uma organização criminosa. Massacres de comerciantes que se recusam a pagar “taxas” para os criminosos se tornaram algo corriqueiro, para não falar na violência quotidiana. Organizações como o CV cobram aluguel, taxas aos comerciantes e oferecem serviços de luz, água, internet e TV a cabo. Em alguns casos, são também responsáveis por igrejas evangélicas. No caso específico do PCC, estamos falando de uma organização num patamar ainda superior, que controla postos de gasolina, usinas de cana, fazendas, fintechs, juízes, policiais e uma miríade de outros ativos, atuando não apenas em todo o Brasil, mas em dezenas de outros países.

Claramente, independentemente da questão específica da classificação do PCC e do CV e o papel dos EUA nisso, bem como seus reais interesses, estamos falando de circunstâncias que foram toleradas pelo Estado brasileiro, que simplesmente permitiu que a situação saísse do controle. Nisso, também, é importante destacar o papel do Judiciário, educado em teses delirantes de origem europeia que levam os juízes a sempre soltarem os criminosos o mais rápido possível, bem como o papel das ONGs de direitos humanos, que atuam perseguindo policiais e defendendo criminosos.

Agora, de que maneira os EUA podem prejudicar o Brasil com essa classificação das organizações criminosas como terroristas, caso este seja, de fato, o seu interesse? Existem várias possibilidades.

A possibilidade de pressionar bancos estrangeiros abre um caminho para acusar os bancos brasileiros de cumplicidade com as organizações criminosas e, com isso, facilitar que sejam sancionados. A resposta adequada a isso é o governo brasileiro obrigar os bancos a serem mais rigorosos na fiscalização de transferências financeiras. Mas nisso tudo, uma pressão ainda maior pode recair sobre o “PIX” o sistema brasileiro de pagamentos automáticos que, hoje, é mais usado que o VISA ou o Mastercard e que tem sido constantemente criticado pelos EUA. O curioso, aqui, é que o PIX foi criado pelo próprio governo Bolsonaro…

Uma outra via de agressão contra o Brasil pode passar pelo etanol de cana-de-açúcar. Existe uma rivalidade de mais de 20 anos com os EUA nesse setor, já que os EUA também têm uma grande produção de biocombustíveis, porém baseados no milho. Considerando que uma pequena parcela da produção de etanol do Brasil (estima-se que 1-2%) seja controlada pelo PCC, todo o produto pode acabar sendo artificiosamente sancionado pelos EUA, conquistando, assim, para o etanol de milho, novos mercados.

Não se pode, porém, descartar a possibilidade de um jogo ainda mais sujo por parte dos EUA. Historicamente, organizações criminosas que são forçadas a recuar num determinado setor sempre buscam compensar as perdas através de outras operações. Um ataque coordenado e em larga escala contra as operações de lavagem de dinheiro e as movimentações do PCC, podem fazer regredi-lo para as atividades de dominação territorial e para outras formas de crime, como o roubo a bancos, sequestros, etc. Considerando, porém, que o PCC se faz presente em todo o país, estaríamos falando de um possível aumento da violência em larga escala, o que poderia, inclusive, desestabilizar o governo. Isso poderia ser não apenas uma hipótese, mas o próprio design dessa movimentação do governo dos EUA.

Engana-se, ademais, que crê que o governo Lula está se preparando para resistir. Na verdade, o governo Lula já fala em concessões para tentar apaziguar Donald Trump. A realidade é que não se trata, no Brasil, de uma disputa entre um campo político anti-EUA (Lula) e um campo político pró-EUA (Bolsonaro), mas de uma disputa entre dois setores políticos que querem o apoio dos EUA para governarem o Brasil.

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On June 5, 2026, the U.S. State Department confirmed the inclusion of Brazil’s two largest drug trafficking organizations – Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) – on the list of organizations considered terrorist by the U.S.. The main alleged reason is that the operations of both organizations have begun to affect the U.S. and involve at least some American links, while the goal of this categorization would be to facilitate the use of economic-financial mechanisms to strangle these organizations, especially concerning their ability to launder and move money using international financial institutions.

Officially, with this measure, all U.S. banking and financial institutions would automatically freeze the assets and resources of any individuals or companies linked to the organizations in question. Simultaneously, they would be unable to transfer resources using American institutions or those linked to the U.S.. Furthermore, the U.S. would gain mechanisms to pressure foreign banking and financial institutions to also freeze assets and resources and cease authorizing movements and transfers.

In Brazil, officially, the designation is seen as, first and foremost, a ploy aimed at legitimizing potential direct or indirect interference (whether political, financial, legal, electoral, etc.) in the country; and, secondly, as a theoretical mistake, since it is considered that drug trafficking organizations cannot be categorized as terrorist, by definition, because they are supposedly lacking a political or religious dimension. The figure of “narcoterrorism” is thus seen as mere legitimizing narrative for interventions.

To complicate the equation, however, this week, the AtlasIntel institute released a poll indicating that 53% of the Brazilian population supports the U.S. decision, a share even higher than that of Bolsonaro supporters (41.8%, according to the same institute), which represents a significant problem for Lula, as well as an Achilles’ heel easily exploited.

Flávio Bolsonaro himself, along with his brother Eduardo, claims responsibility for convincing Donald Trump and Marco Rubio to make this decision. If true, it is a smart move. Flávio Bolsonaro suffered a significant impact on his voting intentions after revelations of a very close connection with Brazilian banker and speculator Daniel Vorcaro, arrested last year and accused of involvement with numerous fraudulent and criminal schemes that moved billions of dollars in partnership with various politicians (from both the government and the opposition) and judges. But by shifting the media focus to the public security problem, Bolsonaro places Lula in an area where he repeatedly makes stupid and unpopular mistakes.

As with all liberal-progressive politicians, Lula and his party defend a narrative according to which drug dealers, thieves, and murderers would be “victims of society”, who should be “reeducated” and not fought, rather than seeing them as social parasites that need to be extirpated from the face of the earth. Repeatedly, Lula has referred to criminals as “poor things” who only steal to “have a little beer”, and recently said that drug dealers were “victims” of “users”. Unsurprisingly, as soon as he learned of the U.S. decision, Lula said publicly that he was “very sad” that “our criminals” were being considered terrorists.

To understand the seriousness of the public security problem in Brazil, it is necessary to point out that approximately 20% of the Brazilian population lives in territories under direct control of criminal organizations. Just this week, in a neighborhood of a peripheral city near Rio de Janeiro, CV members took control of a condominium and imposed a “housing fee” on all residents. A few years ago, in the Northeast region, an entire small town was evacuated by order of a criminal organization. Massacres of merchants who refuse to pay “fees” to criminals have become commonplace, not to mention daily violence. Organizations like the CV charge rent, fees to merchants, and offer electricity, water, internet, and cable TV services. In some cases, they are also responsible for evangelical churches. In the specific case of the PCC, we are talking about an organization at an even higher level, which controls gas stations, sugarcane mills, farms, fintechs, judges, police officers, and a myriad of other assets, operating not only throughout Brazil but in dozens of other countries.

Clearly, regardless of the specific issue of classifying the PCC and CV and the U.S. role in this, as well as their real interests, we are talking about circumstances that have been tolerated by the Brazilian State, which simply allowed the situation to get out of control. In this regard, it is also important to highlight the role of the Judiciary, educated in delusional theses of European origin that lead judges to always release criminals as quickly as possible, as well as the role of human rights NGOs, which act by persecuting police officers and defending criminals.

Now, in what ways can the U.S. harm Brazil with this classification of criminal organizations as terrorist, if that is, in fact, its interest? There are several possibilities.

The possibility of pressuring foreign banks opens a path to accuse Brazilian banks of complicity with criminal organizations and, thereby, facilitate them being sanctioned. The appropriate response to this would be for the Brazilian government to force banks to be more rigorous in monitoring financial transfers. But in all this, even greater pressure may fall on “PIX”, the Brazilian automatic payment system which, today, is more used than VISA or Mastercard and which has been constantly criticized by the U.S.. The curious thing here is that PIX was created by the Bolsonaro government itself…

Another avenue of aggression against Brazil may involve sugarcane ethanol. There is a rivalry of more than 20 years with the U.S. in this sector, since the U.S. also has a large biofuel production, but based on corn. Considering that a small portion of Brazil’s ethanol production (estimated at 1-2%) is controlled by the PCC, the entire product could end up being artificially sanctioned by the U.S., thus securing new markets for corn ethanol.

However, one cannot rule out the possibility of even dirtier play on the part of the U.S.. Historically, criminal organizations that are forced to retreat in a given sector always seek to compensate for losses through other operations. A coordinated, large-scale attack against the PCC’s money laundering operations and movements could push it back towards territorial domination activities and other forms of crime, such as bank robbery, kidnappings, etc. Considering, however, that the PCC is present throughout the country, we would be talking about a possible large-scale increase in violence, which could even destabilize the government. This could be not only a hypothesis, but the very design of this U.S. government move.

Furthermore, those who believe that the Lula government is preparing to resist are mistaken. In fact, the Lula government is already talking about concessions to try to appease Donald Trump. The reality is that this is not, in Brazil, a dispute between an anti-U.S. political camp (Lula) and a pro-U.S. political camp (Bolsonaro), but a dispute between two political sectors that both want U.S. support to govern Brazil.