Critical Minerals Become a Campaign Weapon in Brazil’s 2026 Presidential Race

Brazil critical minerals were a technical policy topic six months ago. Now they are a presidential campaign issue — with each major candidate staking out a position that reveals how they would manage the country’s most consequential foreign policy question: alignment with Washington, Beijing, or neither.

The global race for the minerals that power electric vehicles, wind turbines, semiconductors, and missile systems has arrived at Brazil’s doorstep — and at its ballot box. As investigative outlet Eixos reported this week, the three leading presidential campaigns have each adopted distinct and incompatible strategies for managing the country’s reserves of rare earths (the world’s second-largest), niobium (94% of global supply), graphite (26% of reserves), and lithium. The choices being made now will shape Brazil’s strategic positioning for decades.

Caiado: The US Deal That Bypassed Brasília

The most provocative move came from Ronaldo Caiado, the PSD presidential candidate and outgoing governor of Goiás, who signed a cooperation MoU with the United States on March 30 for geological mapping, technology transfer, and rare earth processing in his state. Goiás hosts Serra Verde, Brazil’s only active rare earth mine, which received a $465 million commitment from the US Development Finance Corporation. At his presidential launch event the same day, Caiado declared that Brazil must stop being “an exporter of raw materials” and touted Goiás as proof that state-level action can move faster than federal bureaucracy.

The federal government was not amused. According to Eixos, Brazilian officials were “privately furious” that Washington signed directly with a governor, viewing it as an attempt to circumvent the Planalto. The Goiás deal covers rare earth separation, metallization, alloy production, and neodymium permanent magnet fabrication — precisely the industrial capabilities Lula insists must be negotiated at the federal level. Caiado was invited by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to a minerals event in Washington a month earlier, and Trump’s representatives have been sounding out Brazilian states since at least April 2025.

Flávio Bolsonaro: Full Alignment With Washington

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, running on the Liberal Party ticket, has taken an even more explicit position: Brazil should be a strategic mineral supplier to the United States as part of a broader security and economic partnership. This mirrors the stance of Argentina’s Milei, who has already signed critical mineral agreements with Washington. For Flávio, the logic is transactional — minerals for market access, investment, and political support. The approach resonates with the Trump administration, which has created a $10 billion strategic stockpile called “Project Vault” under EXIM Bank and committed $14.8 billion in letters of interest for critical mineral projects globally.

Lula: Multi-Partner Autonomy — and a State Company?

President Lula, seeking a fourth term, has maintained Brazil’s position of strategic non-alignment. His government formally declined to join Trump’s 54-nation FORGE alliance in February, sending only a low-ranking diplomat to observe the Washington ministerial. The refusal reflects three objections: the alliance’s data-sharing requirements would surrender sovereignty over resource intelligence, its implicit anti-China orientation conflicts with Brazil’s trade interests (Beijing buys 70% of Brazilian mineral exports), and its framework would lock the country into raw material exports rather than domestic processing.

Instead, Lula has pursued bilateral deals with India, South Korea, and the EU while insisting that any US agreement guarantee domestic value addition. Government allies have gone further, floating the creation of a dedicated state company for critical minerals — an idea that would centralize extraction policy in the federal government and potentially exclude state-level deals like Caiado’s. The proposal has not been formalized but represents the most interventionist option on the table.

The Beattie Incident

The diplomatic tension was laid bare by the Darren Beattie affair. The Trump adviser traveled to Brazil ostensibly for a minerals event in São Paulo — the same forum where the Goiás MoU was signed — but his actual purpose, according to Brazilian authorities, was to visit jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro at the Papuda penitentiary complex in Brasília. The government revoked his visa after identifying the inconsistency. The incident crystallized the broader dynamic: Washington is pursuing minerals access through both official channels and political back-channels, and the choice of interlocutor — the sitting president or his imprisoned predecessor’s allies — is itself a geopolitical statement.

What’s at Stake

Brazil holds 94% of global niobium reserves, the world’s second-largest rare earth deposits at 21 million tonnes, 26% of graphite reserves, and is the fifth-largest lithium exporter. Yet only 0.09% of global critical mineral production comes from Brazil, and just 35% of its territory has been geologically mapped. The $565 million in US financing already committed is a down payment, not a final offer. China controls 60% of rare earth mining and 90% of refining, and Beijing’s 2025 export restrictions crippled Western automakers — a temporary suspension that expires in November 2026, one month after Brazil votes.

The October election will determine whether Brazil’s mineral wealth flows through a US-aligned framework, a sovereign multi-partner model, or a state-directed apparatus. Each path carries different implications for investment, trade, industrial development, and the country’s relationship with the world’s two largest economies. For a nation that has spent decades exporting soybeans, iron ore, and crude oil without capturing the downstream value, the critical minerals question is not just about rocks in the ground. It is about whether Brazil repeats the pattern — or breaks it.

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