There’s a Gotham City-esque feel to the towering skyscrapers that dominate the skyline in every direction as far as the eye can see.
Sao Paulo is a megacity.
It’s a bustling financial hub, home to over 12 million people. The city proper is the most populous in the Americas, the western and southern hemispheres.
It’s the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world – and that includes Portugal.
Sao Paulo has incredible wealth and dreadful poverty.
It is a deeply divided place. And is the perfect metaphor for Brazil‘s presidential election that is tearing the country apart.
Across the country they’re voting in the second round of this election after neither the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, nor his main opponent Lula da Silva secured the vital 50% plus one vote needed for victory earlier this month.
The country is on a knife’s edge. It’s impossible to tell where this is going.
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Both candidates are populists in their own ways.
Jair Bolsonaro is often compared to Donald Trump, and he certainly apes his United States’ buddy’s approach to faith, gender issues, gun ownership, and human rights – and appears to simultaneously bask in abject rudeness with a tenuous adherence to fact if it doesn’t suit his personal agenda.
Like Trump, he and his advisers have been casting the election as rigged against them.
Image: There is a huge trade in election merchandise
This week his 26-year-old son Flavio Bolsonaro said his father is “the victim of the largest electoral fraud ever seen”, though they’ve offered no evidence.
And if Bolsonaro does win, that allegation will probably be dropped instantly.
He could win, the polls are neck and neck.
There is fear amongst Lula da Silva’s supporters that they lost momentum after the first round, that the polls had given them an inflated sense of confidence, and that the election result might not go their way.
Lula, a former president, is bidding to stage a remarkable comeback to the top of the political ladder.
Arrested in 2018 on corruption charges, later quashed, he was consistently the most popular political leader in the world with approval ratings in the 80s and 90s during his time in office from 2003 until 2011.
Many thought he could win the presidency in the first round on 1 October. He didn’t, and worse for him and his party, President Bolsonaro closed the gap to a handful of points.
Now everything is to play for.
The polling companies in Brazil are very sophisticated, but their results have been questioned by many.
There is a huge trade in election merchandise here; towels, flags, buttons, and caps for both candidates are sold on street corners and outside virtually every subway station and at newsagents.
Image: Jair Bolsonaro is often compared to Donald Trump
Saulo Adriel and his brother set up store on Paulista Avenue, this city’s equivalent of Oxford Street, and he’s doing a big trade in presidential merch.
Hanging on the traffic lights next to a pedestrian crossing, Saulo has a chalkboard where he keeps a running tally which candidate’s merchandise is selling the best.
He told me after the first round it was literally neck and neck, but today, Lula appeared to be well ahead. That could be because he was about to hold a rally on the same street.
The real point is Saulo says he’s been totalling his figures up, and it appears to be too close to call.
“I don’t know who is going to win anymore. This is the most polarised election in history, I guess,” he told me while overseeing more sales.
“I think there will be 500,000 to one million votes difference between them, though I can’t say, literally, who is going to win.”
Image: Saulo Adriel and his brother set up store on Paulista Avenue
While I spoke to him, he updated the chalkboard with another two sales for Lula.
Still, it’s so close he’s investing his money on both of them.
“My brother and I have already invested in 1,000 Bolsonaro supporter badges and 1,000 Lula badges, so it’s fifty-fifty, you know?”
The two candidates have finished their final election rallies.
President Bolsonaro took to his motorcycle in Belo Horizonte in Brazil’s south, and was greeted by thousands of adoring supporters, some also on their motorcycles.
Belo Horizonte is a bellwether state that usually predicts the eventual winner.
On Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, Lula da Silva was greeted by huge numbers of partying supporters as he took to a cavalcade through the city.
In the crowd we met a group of university professors who were there dressed in white, as opposed to the party’s usual red.
Image: Lula da Silva merchandise for sale
They explained the rally had been divided into a series of colours, and white indicated that they were there demonstrating for the protection of democratic principles and peace.
Marcos Oliveira, a professor at the University of Rio de Janeiro, told me he believes the behaviour of Donald Trump and his supporters after his election loss has been co-opted by Bolsonaro’s team, and threatens Brazilian democracy.
“The ideology behind Bolsonaro’s administration is the very same one that was built for Donald Trump,” he said.
“So, the structure behind it and the narratives are exactly the same, the difference is we know now in advance because of what happened with the elections in the United States, it prepared the groundwork for us to strike back, so we need to have this in mind.”
Standing next to him, his friend Professor Ariel Silva from Sao Paulo, nodded in agreement.
Image: Marcos Oliveira (L) and his friend professor Ariel Silva
“Their strategy is very similar to the strategy of Trump in the last election, so we more or less have an idea what to expect, but we are here to fight for democracy,” Silva added.
On the final day then, either could win, it seems to be that close.
The problem for Brazil is that the divisions are so deep any reconciliation between the two sides will prove incredibly difficult.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
More on Donald Trump
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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5:07
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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3:27
How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”