Brasília (AFP) – Visas are being denied, insults are flying, and ambassadors are caught in the crossfire: Two months before Brazil’s election, diplomatic tensions are flaring between President Lula’s leftist administration and the right-wing governments of Argentina and the United States.

“We cannot accept interference,” leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in an interview Wednesday, a day after the United States announced it had revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador.

The Trump administration’s decision was “irresponsible and ill-advised,” Lula told the Meteoro Brasil news outlet.

Relations between Brasilia and Washington have blown hot and cold for months as Lula and his ideological opposite, Donald Trump, have clashed over tariffs, free speech and Brazil’s judiciary.

Meanwhile, Brazil this week recalled its ambassador and downgraded diplomatic ties with Buenos Aires after repeated insults from Argentina’s firebrand libertarian president Javier Milei, who said Lula was “a thief” and “corrupt.”

“This decision remains in effect as long as Javier Milei’s attacks on Brazilian democratic institutions persist,” a source at Brazil’s foreign ministry said Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

Both Trump and Milei are allies of Brazil’s far-right Bolsonaro family.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro, 71, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for plotting a coup when he lost his 2022 re-election bid.

In his place, his eldest son Flavio is running for the presidency in October elections.

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