Washington, May 26 (EFE).- The United States President Donald Trump received Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro at the White House on Tuesday to endorse his presidential candidacy, less than three weeks after meeting with Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The son of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) posted a photograph on his social media accounts showing him standing next to Trump, who was seated at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. During the meeting, Bolsonaro promised Trump that Brazil would join the «Shield of the Americas,» a Washington-backed regional anti-drug alliance, to form a hemispheric front alongside right-wing leaders like Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele. The candidate also revealed he asked Trump to designate Brazilian criminal factions PCC and Comando Vermelho as terrorist groups «as soon as possible,» a classification currently opposed by Lula’s government on sovereignty grounds. Furthermore, Bolsonaro offered Brazil’s vast critical mineral reserves as a strategic «alternative» to China’s monopoly in the sector, while noting that Trump’s first question was about the condition of his imprisoned father, Jair Bolsonaro. Flávio Bolsonaro traveled to Washington on Sunday night, seeking a spot on the president’s schedule for a meeting that had not been officially confirmed by the White House. The right-wing senator sought to use this meeting to boost his candidacy following a leak linking him to Daniel Vorcaro, a banker jailed on suspicion of being behind the country’s largest financial fraud. The controversy has already hurt his support in the polls. The Bolsonaro family shares a certain ideological affinity with the US president, who tried, unsuccessfully, to influence the judicial process for coup plotting against Flávio’s father, the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. Trump imposed high tariffs on Brazilian imports and sanctions against the Supreme Federal Court in charge of the case against the former president but later backed down after negotiating with the Brazilian Government. Bolsonaro’s trip comes after Lula met with Trump at the White House on May 7, an encounter both leaders deemed positive. In audio recordings leaked to the press regarding the Vorcaro case, the senator calls the banker «brother» and asks him for a multimillion-dollar sum to finance a film about his father. Flávio Bolsonaro has acknowledged the link with the banker but denied any irregularity in the financing, stating it was «private money.» The revelations have caused the candidate to drop in electoral polls, which now place him several points behind Lula after previously showing them in a technical tie. EFE er-int/dmv/dgp