When Brazilians return to the polls on October 25, they will choose between two candidates offering distinctly different ideas about how Latin America’s largest economy should grow.
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro finished first in the opening round with 47.03 percent of valid votes, followed by incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with 45.16 percent, according to Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court. Neither cleared the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff.
For business leaders across the Americas, what happens next matters well beyond Brazilian politics.
Why Brazil Matters
Brazil’s GDP reached roughly $2.28 trillion in 2025, making it Latin America’s largest economy. The country also attracted $77 billion in foreign direct investment that year, up from $63 billion in 2024, according to the World Bank.
Its economic relationships stretch in multiple directions. U.S. trade in goods and services with Brazil totaled an estimated $135.7 billion in 2025. China, meanwhile, accounted for nearly 31 percent of Brazilian exports during the first eight months of 2026 and more than a quarter of its imports.
That scale makes the election relevant to companies thinking about investment, supply chains, trade, energy, manufacturing, and growth across the hemisphere.
Two Different Paths to Growth
The candidates’ economic programs reveal a fundamental difference over the role government should play in generating that growth.
Lula’s platform largely extends the strategy of his current administration: pairing private capital with an active state role in infrastructure, industrial development, credit, and investment. His program calls for strengthening the Nova Indústria Brasil industrial policy, supporting strategic industries and technological development, and continuing infrastructure investment and concessions.
Fiscal consolidation is part of that strategy, too. Lula’s economic team has outlined a gradual adjustment intended to produce a primary surplus of roughly 1.3 percent of GDP by 2030 while preserving social programs.
Bolsonaro’s program puts greater emphasis on reducing the state’s footprint and creating conditions for private investment. His proposals include reducing the number of government ministries and administrative expenses, reviving privatizations, reviewing regulation, cutting taxes, and pursuing greater trade openness.
His advisers have proposed a considerably faster fiscal adjustment, equivalent to about 1.5 percent of GDP within 18 months, and a new fiscal framework tied more closely to the country’s debt burden.
The distinction, then, is not between growth and austerity. Both candidates are promising investment, growth, and improved public finances. They differ substantially in how they propose to get there.
What Business Should Actually Watch
Campaign platforms are only part of the equation.
Brazil’s central bank currently has its benchmark Selic rate at 13.75 percent, while the International Monetary Fund says a more ambitious fiscal effort is needed to put public debt on a firmly downward path and help create conditions for lower borrowing costs.
Neither campaign has fully detailed the politically difficult measures necessary to achieve its fiscal targets, particularly as mandatory expenditures constrain the government’s room to maneuver.
The next president will also inherit implementation of Brazil’s sweeping consumption-tax overhaul. Key components of the new system take effect beginning in 2027, meaning businesses will be navigating a significant tax transition from the opening days of the next administration.
Then there is Congress. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party emerged from the October elections with a significantly stronger presence in Brazil’s legislature. That gives Congress an important role in determining how much of either president’s economic program can actually become policy.
The Bottom Line
Brazil’s runoff presents businesses with two different theories of economic growth: one relying more heavily on the state to catalyze investment and industrial development, the other emphasizing a smaller state and fewer barriers to private capital.
But whoever wins will confront many of the same constraints: expensive credit, fiscal pressure, a major tax transition, and a powerful Congress.
For executives watching Brazil, the most consequential question may not be which economic vision wins on October 25. It may be how much of that vision can actually be turned into policy.
