How Brazil’s presidential election could affect ties with South-east Asia
Whether Lula or Flavio Bolsonaro wins, the next leader will set the pace of its Asean push
Brazil helps secure Asean’s food security, particularly in supplying meat and commodities such as soybeans, coffee and corn. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Andrew Hammond
Published Wed, Sep 9, 2026 · 07:00 AM
THE outcome of the upcoming Brazilian presidential election will undoubtedly affect the future of South America’s largest economy. What is less widely understood are its implications for Brazil’s relations with Asean and Asia.
Deeper relations with Asean would likely be prioritised if President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose poll lead over Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has narrowed, is re-elected.
Lula has made Brazil’s return to the global stage a key ambition of his third presidential term, having succeeded Jair Bolsonaro – father of Flavio Bolsonaro – in 2023.
Through initiatives such as holding the Group of 20 presidency in 2024, Lula has sought to lead the Global South, including Asean. Beyond diversifying international ties to counter his frigid relationship with US President Donald Trump, Lula and his party have a longstanding commitment to South-east Asia.
In 2012, under president Dilma Rousseff of Lula’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores), Brazil became the first Latin American nation to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.
Brazil is the first Sectoral Dialogue Partner with a dedicated mission at the Asean Secretariat in Jakarta. It now has embassies in nine Asean member states as it seeks to deepen relationships across the region.
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Lula also became the first Brazilian president to visit the Asean headquarters in October 2025. At the bloc’s 47th Summit in Kuala Lumpur later that year, Lula formally requested Brazil’s transition from Sectoral Dialogue Partner to Full Dialogue Partner.
The warmth of relations was most recently reciprocated when Asean secretary-general Kao Kim Hourn visited Brazil in August 2026.
Beyond Lula’s personal enthusiasm, deeper structural economic forces are also driving Brazil’s pivot towards Asean and Asia.
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Since 2010, Asia has become Brazil’s most critical trading partner, purchasing around half of its exports. Around two-fifths of Brazil’s farm exports go to China, its single largest buyer within Asia.
Bilateral trade
With bilateral trade at US$37.2 billion in 2024, Asean is now Brazil’s fourth-largest destination for exports, and fifth-largest trading partner behind China, the EU, the US and the Mercosur bloc (which currently includes Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia).
Lula sees massive upside potential in Asean, given its expanding working-age population and resilient economic performance. Over the last decade, the bloc’s average annual gross domestic product growth rate has been 4.7 per cent, while the Group of Seven average is 1.8 per cent.
Brazil also benefits from a significant trade surplus with Asean, which stood at about US$15.5 billion in 2024.
As the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products, Brazil helps secure Asean’s food security, particularly in supplying meat and commodities such as soybeans, coffee and corn.
If Lula wins re-election, his early actions would likely involve deepening collaboration in the Asean-Brazilian partnership’s Practical Cooperation Areas 2024-2028, which includes science, technology and energy.
Key priorities include strengthening relations with Indonesia, possibly through a trade liberalisation deal centred on agribusiness and energy.
With Brazil-Indonesia trade currently amounting to just over US$6 billion, there is much upside potential to be realised. Reducing transaction costs by linking Brazil’s Pix and Indonesia’s QRIS instant-payment systems could be a starting point.
Brazil is also keen to deepen ties with Malaysia in domains such as energy and semiconductors. The South American country’s vast mineral assets could prove valuable to Malaysia as the latter seeks to secure critical supply chains for its semiconductor industry.
Yet, Lula’s victory is by no means certain.
Flavio Bolsonaro is advancing in recent polls, and neither candidate is projected to win more than 50 per cent of valid votes in the first round. A second-round run-off between the two is likely, as has happened in every Brazilian presidential election since 2002.
Should Flavio Bolsonaro win, structural drivers mean that the Brazil-Asean relationship is likely to remain positive, though he would probably not accord Asean the same priority as Lula. Brazil-China relations were particularly poor when his father was in office from 2019 to 2023.
It seems more likely that Flavio Bolsonaro would emphasise thawing ties with Trump, who had a close relationship with Jair Bolsonaro when their terms overlapped.
A key early goal for Flavio Bolsonaro would be reducing the wide slew of significant tariffs levied by the US against Brazil in recent years.
Taken together, the outlook for Brazil-Asean ties appears positive, regardless of who wins. While Lula can be expected to accelerate engagement with the region, deeper economic factors should prevent Flavio Bolsonaro from veering too far off course.
The writer is an associate at LSE Ideas at the London School of Economics
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