STORY-TRÅD·sport

Trump’s pro-gun policies likely to benefit criminal groups in Brazil

The Trump administration’s package of 34 measures to relax gun sales regulations in the US is expected to make it easier for criminal groups in Brazil to obtain heavy weapons, experts in public safety consulted by Agência Brasil say. Among the measures proposed by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) are allowing the purchase of firearms by mail, reducing the time sellers must retain sales records, and relaxing background checks on buyers. President Trump’s more lenient stance worries experts in Brazil because the US is one of the main suppliers of weapons to various parts of the world. In Mexico, 80 percent of the weapons seized from drug cartels come from the country’s northern neighbor. In Haiti, the United Nations (UN) estimates that most of the weapons used by the gangs that control about 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, the capital, come from the US. Of the firearms seized in Caribbean countries from 2018 to 2022, 73 percent originated in the US, according to ATF data compiled in a Harvard University study. Trump’s policies worry Brazil In Brazil, a study published in the British Journal of Illicit Economies and Development indicates that, of the 1,700 illegal rifles seized in the Brazilian Southeast from 2019 to 2023, 54 percent originated in the US. “This places the US in first place as the country of origin for illegal rifles – a crucial resource for sustaining and expanding organized crime,” Brazilian researchers Bruno Langeani and Natalia Pllachi wrote. Agência Brasil interviewed Bruno Langeani, who is also a senior consultant at the Sou da Paz Institute. In his view, Trump’s measures are “quite concerning” because they “certainly facilitate Brazilian criminal factions’ access to these weapons.” “The US has a problem with this regulation – one that already existed – which is selling semi-finished parts without any kind of control or registration. These parts are a serious problem for Brazil,” he pointed out. In Langeani’s view, disassembled weapons are easier to ship abroad because they go unnoticed by customs officials. “It’s very common for these parts to be sent through the mail. They’re hard to detect because they aren’t complete weapons. If they go through an X-ray machine and there’s no one trained to identify the parts, it becomes harder to find and combat them,” he added. Considering all military-style firearms seized in the Southeast – not just rifles – the main countries of origin for these weapons are Brazil itself, followed by the US, Germany, and Belgium. The report authored by Bruno Langeani emphasizes that “weaknesses in data collection” regarding seized illegal weapons limit the analysis of the illegal arms trafficking landscape in Brazil, as the origin of a large portion of the weapons remains unidentified. Pro-gun lobby Social scientist Robson Rodrigues, a researcher at the Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), notes that the pro-gun lobby is strong in the US and works to reduce oversight of arms sales. “These agendas of foreign countries seeking to expand their markets find an attractive public in Brazil. Of course, by increasing the supply and making it easier to acquire firearms in the US, weapons will inevitably find their way here in greater numbers,” he said. In September 2025, the Trump administration lifted restrictions on firearms exports to 36 countries, including some with a history of problems involving the diversion of weapons to criminal activities, such as Paraguay, Colombia, Suriname, Bolivia, and Peru – all of which are Brazil’s neighbors. In announcing the measure, the US Department of Commerce argued that lifting the restrictions “will allow US firearms manufacturers to compete in foreign markets, creating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in export opportunities.” “We can say that the US is exporting with fewer risk assessments, and this increases the chances that these weapons will be trafficked,” Langeani of the Sou da Paz Institute argued. Contradiction Rodrigues highlights the “contradiction” in Trump’s policy, which, on the one hand, aims to combat cartels in Latin America, while allowing easier access to US firearms. “They classify cartels as terrorist organizations, but make no joint effort whatsoever to curb these organizations’ access to weapons. And it’s not just a matter of weapons, but also of money laundering,” he said. Robson Rodrigues states it is necessary to combat the supply side of the drug trade – which is concentrated primarily in Latin America – but also the demand side, which lies within the US itself. “Domestic criminal organizations in the US and Europe make more profit than the cartels in Mexico or Brazil. That’s because they profit from retail sales, increasing their profit margin. You have to fight on all fronts and not just target one side while leaving the other wide open,” he noted. To the criminologist’s judgment, this apparent contradiction can be explained by “these economic interests [of the US arms industry], which take precedence over any humanitarian or social interest.” Bruno Langeani believes that US domestic policy is running counter to Trump’s anti-drug rhetoric toward Latin America. “If the US government’s interest in weakening organized crime is indeed genuine, it should be taking the opposite approach to reduce and hinder criminal organizations’ access to weapons coming out of the US,” he said. From 2008 to 2024, the US firearms and ammunition industry saw its revenue increase by 379 percent, with a 130 percent rise in the number of jobs, reaching USD 91.7 billion and 382,000 jobs respectively. The data come from the US National Shooting Sports Foundation.