Trump is now so toxic even close allies are shunning him for political gain

Donald Trump likes politics to be a family affair. His son-in-law Jared Kushner is his unofficial diplomatic envoy around much of the world. His family business makes deals with world leaders even as Trump negotiates on behalf of the US. More than once, Trump has ‘joked’ about one of his children succeeding him as president. So, it should have been a proud moment for Trump over the weekend when Flávio Bolsonaro – the son of former Brazilian president and close Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro – accepted his party’s nomination as its candidate for president, in a speech that made time for name-checking some of his global allies. Bolsonaro’s address included a video message from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising him as a “great champion of Brazil”, while he also trumpeted his endorsement from Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei, who offered solidarity “everywhere against the lies of socialism”. Shorts However, there was a notable name missing. Bolsonaro made no mention whatsoever of Trump – a snub the famously thin-skinned US President will surely be furious about. As recently as May, Bolsonaro Jr lobbied hard to get a picture in the Oval Office with Trump. The Republican Party has also repeatedly lobbied on behalf of Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for an attempted coup he launched in the wake of losing the 2022 presidential election. While Republicans have singled out Brazil as an enemy of free speech, free elections and all that is good in the world in recent years – the Bolsonaro family have often been in attendance. In 2025, several Bolsonaro family members were present in the room to watch Republican Congressman Jim Jordan convene a congressional committee to investigate the “Censorship Industrial Complex” – a claim that Democrats had abused US government funds to censor conservatives worldwide. More than that, the Trump and Bolsonaro family seem to have courted friendly relations with one another – Flávio’s brother Eduardo spent the night of the 2024 US presidential election as an invited guest at Mar-a-Lago, where he was pictured with Donald Trump Jr. The two were also seen together at one of Trump’s inaugural balls, and Trump Jr has delivered a video message to a right-wing Brazilian political conference. The absence of any mention of the US President, then, could not have happened by accident, and certainly would not be some oversight. Flavio Bolsonaro during his campaign launch event in Sao Paulo on 25 July, 2026. Donald Trump was not mentioned during his speech (Photo: Maira Erlich/Bloomberg via Getty Images) For years, the Bolsonaros have courted the Trump family – and yet, just as you’d have thought they would want the political support of the US President in their corner, they seem to have dropped him entirely. There is, of course, one obvious solution to the mystery: Trump is simply so politically toxic across the world these days that even his closest international allies are having to distance themselves from him. This has been obvious in Europe for some time. Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni so assiduously courted Trump that he endorsed her autobiography, while Donald Trump Jr wrote the forewords to its English-language edition. Now, though, the two world leaders have a very public rift, with Trump claiming Meloni “begged” for a photograph with him and Meloni accusing the President of “completely fabricat[ing]” the claim. Trump’s White House has made it a public foreign policy goal to aid its ideological allies around the world – and yet they are still deserting him in droves. One key reason might be that Trump’s help often seems to backfire. Two US officials were recently denied visas to enter Brazil over suspicions they were there to attempt to interfere in the forthcoming presidential elections. Trump’s White House has introduced punitive sanctions against Brazil, believed to be partly in retaliation for the visa incident, as well as for Bolsonaro senior’s continued imprisonment. Those tariffs are, inevitably, harming Brazil’s economy and putting crucial jobs and industries at risk – which has, in turn, made Trump and the US more unpopular in Brazil. By trying to help his ally, Trump has instead created a massive political headache for him. Official relations between the US government and Brazil’s current left-wing administration are now near an all-time low. Trump is also chronically unpopular back home, as he fails to grapple with a cost-of-living crisis and seems unable to disentangle himself from a war with Iran that no one except him seemed to want. Unpopular US presidents often seek solace abroad, where they receive a warmer reception – but for Trump there seems to be no comfort there. Trump’s White House has spent most of the last 18 months alienating America’s oldest and closest allies, in a bid to court a new international coalition of its own making. Now it’s finding even they don’t want to pick up the phone. Trump’s remaining days in the Oval Office could become very lonely indeed.