Lula rejects US designation of Brazilian drug gangs as terrorist groups

(Patria) - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned the United States' decision to label two major Brazilian criminal groups as terrorist organizations, calling it a threat to the nation's sovereignty that will not help fight drug trafficking, Reuters reported.

"We refuse to be treated like children, as if this were some kind of banana republic," Lula said at an event in the state of Sergipe on Friday.

"Don't play with the sovereignty of this country or with our democracy."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday that the US would designate Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC, and Comando Vermelho, or CV, as foreign terrorist organizations, a move it has previously taken against other criminal groups across Latin America.

The decision came just days after right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula's main challenger in October's election and the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, visited Donald Trump at the White House and put the veteran leftist leader in a difficult position ahead of the vote.

With crime topping Brazilians' concerns, Bolsonaro had advocated for the designation as part of his push for tough public security policies.

Lula, who has politically benefited from positioning himself as a defender of Brazilian sovereignty during previous clashes with Trump, is now trying to balance what his government sees as potential repercussions in its dealings with efforts to convince voters he is tough enough on crime.

At the event, he said the two groups were terrorists "only for Brazilian society" because they disrupt daily life, but he drew a distinction between their crimes and ideologically motivated international terrorist groups.

He called on the United States to extradite Brazilian fugitives living in the country and said he had handed Trump a package of documents describing Brazil's strategy to combat organized crime during his visit to the White House earlier this month.

Lula noted Rubio was not present at the meeting, after which Trump called his Brazilian counterpart a "dynamic" leader.

His government, meanwhile, accused the Bolsonaro family of again seeking foreign interference in Brazilian affairs.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flávio's brother, had previously lobbied the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Brazil in a failed attempt to prevent Jair Bolsonaro's conviction for an attempted coup.

"It is regrettable that members of the Bolsonaro family are traveling to the US again to advocate for foreign intervention in Brazil, as they did during the tariff hikes that caused so much damage to our country," the government said on Friday.