{"id":18462,"date":"2026-04-11T00:54:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=18462"},"modified":"2026-04-11T00:54:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:54:05","slug":"brazil-announces-us-partnership-to-intercept-weapons-drug-trafficking-government-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=18462","title":{"rendered":"Brazil announces US partnership to intercept weapons, drug trafficking | Government News"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

The Brazilian government has announced a new security partnership with the United States to combat criminal networks, as well as the illicit traffic of drugs and weapons.<\/p>\n

In a social media post on Friday, Brazil\u2019s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the deal a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

\n

Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

\u201cBrazil and the United States today established unprecedented cooperation between the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service and US Customs,\u201d he wrote<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will intensify the fight against international arms and drug trafficking through concrete actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of those \u201cconcrete actions\u201d, he said, will include \u201creal-time data sharing, rigorous cargo tracking and joint operations to intercept illicit shipments\u201d.<\/p>\n

Separately, a statement<\/a> from the Brazilian Revenue Service said the deal would result in the \u201ccontinuous flow of information from US authorities to their Brazilian counterparts\u201d.<\/p>\n

The operation, according to Lula\u2019s government, will be called the DESARMA programme.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s Finance Minister Dario Durigan hailed the collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as an \u201cimportant step in strengthening international cooperation\u201d against crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis initiative will integrate intelligence and joint operations to intercept arms and narcotics trafficking, thereby reinforcing security and coordinated action between the two countries,\u201d he said on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s deal is the latest collaboration inked between the administration of US President Donald Trump and a government in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Trump has been on a campaign to crack down on criminal networks throughout the Western Hemisphere, and he has reached out to regional right-wing governments to join his \u201cShield of the Americas\u201d coalition.<\/p>\n

But left-wing leaders like Lula were absent from a March summit kicking off the \u201cShield of the Americas\u201d.<\/p>\n

Still, the Trump administration has pressured governments like Lula\u2019s to take more \u201caggressive\u201d action towards crime, including through military deployments.<\/p>\n

For his part, Lula has sought to limit the illicit flow of US weapons across its borders.<\/p>\n

In announcing the DESARMA initiative, the Brazilian government revealed that, in the last 12 months alone, it had seized 1,168<\/a> illegally imported arms and weapons parts, mainly sent from the US state of Florida.<\/p>\n

Those weapons largely end up in the hands of criminal networks, according to the government.<\/p>\n

Differing approaches<\/h2>\n

But Trump and Lula have been at loggerheads in recent months over how best to address crime in the Americas.<\/p>\n

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has taken a hardline approach, labelling multiple Latin American gangs and cartels as \u201cforeign terrorist organisations\u201d, a designation that had traditionally been reserved for armed groups with political aims, like al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

He has used such labels as justification to carry out deadly attacks in the name of national security.<\/p>\n

Since September 2, the US has conducted at least 47 lethal strikes on maritime vessels travelling in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, in what legal experts condemn as extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n

At least 147 people have died, their identities never publicly confirmed.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has also carried out what it described as a \u201cjoint military and law enforcement raid\u201d in Venezuela on January 3, in the name of confronting drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

The operation culminated in dozens of deaths, all either Cuban or Venezuelan, as well as the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. They currently await trial in New York on drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has reportedly argued that it is in \u201carmed conflict\u201d with Latin American criminal networks, whom it considers \u201cunlawful combatants\u201d.<\/p>\n

While Lula\u2019s government has taken action against such networks within Brazil, it has called on the Trump administration not to use the \u201cforeign terrorist\u201d label for entities within its borders.<\/p>\n

In recent months, for instance, reports have emerged that Trump is considering designating two Brazilian criminal networks: the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho (CV).<\/p>\n

But in an interview on March 25 with the Brazilian news organisation G1, Brazil\u2019s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said he conveyed his opposition directly to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke on the phone with Secretary Marco Rubio and told him that the Brazilian government is against this classification,\u201d Vieira said.<\/p>\n

Lula himself has repeatedly called on the Trump administration to respect the sovereignty of Latin American countries, including his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage,\u201d Lula posted last year after Trump threatened the country with steep tariffs, in protest against the prosecution of former right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

Lula is expected to travel to Washington, DC, in the coming months to visit Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brazilian government has announced a new security partnership with the United States to combat criminal networks, as well as the illicit traffic of drugs and weapons. In a social media post on Friday, Brazil\u2019s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the deal a breakthrough. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list \u201cBrazil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}