SÃO PAULO—A right-wing surge that swept through election after election in Latin America has hit a wall in Brazil.

Leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s upset victory Sunday broke a string of seven consecutive right-wing presidential victories that began in April 2025. From Honduras to Chile, Bolivia to Colombia, voters frustrated by crime, corruption and economic stagnation turned to conservatives who made hard-line promises to restore order, revive growth and align with President Trump.

Da Silva’s victory leaves Brazil, alongside fellow leftist Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, as major counterweights to Trump’s regional ambitions, complicating the U.S.’s efforts to forge a broad like-minded alliance of countries. Brazil and Mexico, the first and third geographically largest countries in Latin America, together account for more than half of the region’s total population and economic output.

“With Lula’s victory, [Trump] got a slap in the face,” said John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador in Panama.

The shift to the right has been welcomed by Trump. He endorsed conservatives and sought to assert U.S. dominance in the region to check China’s deep economic inroads while battling the drug-trafficking militias that have threatened governance. More than a dozen Latin American and Caribbean nations have joined the Trump administration’s Shield of Americas, a U.S.-led security coalition aimed at combating drug smuggling.

“It’s clearly a blow,” said Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington. “Trump was counting on the big prize, which was Brazil. It was the icing on the cake.”Da Silva’s victory isn’t the only setback for the region’s right and its allies in Washington. Recently elected leaders who have sided with the U.S. are discovering how difficult it is to deliver on their promises.

Ecuador’s drug war has generated one of the world’s highest homicide rates under President Daniel Noboa, whose militarized security strategy has failed to stop the violence. Tons of cocaine still flow to the U.S. and Europe despite Washington’s deployment of soldiers to Ecuador to bolster antidrug operations. Drug traffickers in Colombia—where the far-right firebrand Abelardo de la Espriella was elected in June—have sought out new routes even as the U.S. has blown up speedboats moving drugs.

The free-market overhaul in Argentina by President Javier Milei—who in 2023 became the first explicitly pro-Trump conservative elected in South America this decade—brought down the triple-digit inflation he inherited from the leftist Peronist movement that had ruled the country. But economists say he has failed to deliver a sharp rebound as Argentina’s economy stagnates and people demand jobs. With Milei’s re-election bid a year away, pollsters say the economic malaise is opening the door to a return of the free-spending Peronists, which would likely fuel more financial upheaval.

“Given the state of the economy and Milei’s current level of popularity, his re-election is not guaranteed, and Peronism is competitive today,” said Lucas Romero, director of Synopsis Consultores, a Buenos Aires consulting firm.

Elsewhere, the new right-wing or center-right governments from Chile and Bolivia to Colombia and Peru are already facing declining public support as they confront stubborn economic problems, demands for more effective crime fighting and impatient voters. They are also bracing for a powerful El Niño phenomenon, which could bring heavy rains and flooding and has already disrupted fishing and mining operations.

Their struggles raise questions about whether the region’s conservative resurgence represents a lasting political realignment capable of delivering some of the long-term changes the U.S. wants.

“After 20 years, we had the opportunity to change things dramatically, and now we are squandering that opportunity,” Jorge Quiroga, a conservative former Bolivian leader who finished second in the 2025 election against President Rodrigo Paz, said of his home country in an interview.

Latin America’s new right-wing leaders are still in the early days of their rule. And the Trump administration has gone out of its way to boost allies, most notably by providing Milei with a $20 billion financial lifeline ahead of Argentina’s midterm congressional elections last year.

Despite da Silva’s decisive win over his right-wing rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, he faces an struggle to govern after conservatives swept congressional elections earlier this month. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party emerged as the largest in both chambers, winning 121 of 513 seats in the lower house and securing a 28-strong bloc in the 81-seat Senate.

Da Silva also faces mounting economic challenges, including a widening budget deficit, soaring public debt and some of the world’s highest interest rates, as growth slows. [video] What Lula’s Election Victory Means for Brazil and the U.S. Latin America has experienced reversals before. A generation of leftist leaders led by da Silva and Venezuela’s bombastic Hugo Chávez dominated politics during the 2000s, when a commodities boom facilitated spending on social programs that fueled growth and lifted tens of millions from poverty.

But the sharp decline in prices for oil and other resources, along with corruption scandals, shattered the so-called Pink Tide of leftists.

Now da Silva’s victory could also reignite tensions with Trump, who questioned Sunday’s result, saying it “looked like another rigged election,” without providing evidence. Bolsonaro, who is facing investigations for alleged financial crimes, fled to Miami on Wednesday, where the Trump administration said it would issue visas to him and his family.

Milei, who has long called da Silva corrupt and a communist, withheld recognition of his victory. European countries and most Latin American leaders recognized da Silva’s win.

Trump and da Silva had recently established a working relationship after clashing last year, when Washington imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, among the highest imposed on any country, over the prosecution of Flávio Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, for plotting a coup against da Silva.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s embrace of the Latin American right may have hurt him on Sunday, political analysts said. He championed El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on crime, promising five maximum-security prisons in Brazil if elected. He also venerated Milei’s brand of fiscal austerity, even brandishing oversize scissors to symbolize spending cuts to come.

Bolsonaro later ditched the prop as da Silva warned poorer Brazilians about the hardships they could face if they elected his rival.

“Poverty in Argentina has reached 40%,” da Silva said in a presidential debate. “People are eating donkey meat, and you said you wanted the same model.”