Exclusive – US articulates strategic access to Fernando de Noronha and Natal under the allegation of historical right and military investment

Repeating the rhetoric used in the Panama Canal, diplomacy linked to Donald Trump’s entourage is pushing for unrestricted access to the infrastructure of Noronha and the Natal Air Base. Logistical-operational interests in the South Atlantic and ISR assets motivate a new influence campaign.
Photo US Air Force F15C Eagle from the Louisiana Air National Guard 159th Fighter Wing takes off at CRUZEX 2024 at Natal Air Base, 11 Nov 2024.

DefesaNet Portal
Brasilia, May 7, 2025

Diplomats linked to Republican sectors in the United States, directly associated with President Donald Trump’s political core , have been informally articulating with Brazilian interlocutors the unrestricted use of Fernando de Noronha Airport (SBFN) and Natal Air Base (BANT) , in Rio Grande do Norte. The argument used refers to the concept of “ historical right of operational return ”, based on investments made by the USA during World War II and the Cold War period .

The same argument was recently used in statements about the Panama Canal, where Trumpist sectors began to publicly defend that the US should claim technical-operational control of the interoceanic structure, under the claim that “it was the United States that built, paid for and defended the installation during the 20th century”.

In the Brazilian case, these are high-value geostrategic assets: Fernando de Noronha as a sensor-forward base in the equatorial South Atlantic , and Natal Air Base as a transcontinental transit logistics hub , compatible with intertheater air operations and as a standby base for projection over West Africa and the northern coast of South America.

Technical-operational rationale behind the pressure

According to defense analysts consulted by DefesaNet , both Fernando de Noronha and Natal Air Base offer tangible operational advantages for the United States’ C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) architecture, especially in the context of hemispheric projection and strategic containment in the South Atlantic.

In the case of Fernando de Noronha , its equatorial location makes the archipelago an ideal location for long-range ocean surveillance. The island serves as a natural platform for the installation of electro-optical sensors, maritime surface radars and ELINT/SIGINT equipment , aimed at monitoring naval and air routes between South America, West Africa and the mid-Atlantic. Its proximity to the maritime corridor between the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea —now the target of increasing Chinese, Russian and flag-of-convenience naval activity—makes Noronha an advanced vector for interdiction and intelligence gathering.

In addition, the archipelago’s airport has the capacity to operate as a tactical support point for maritime surveillance aircraft and medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs, such as the MQ-9 Reaper or SeaGuardian, allowing persistent coverage over areas of interest. The technical feasibility of integration with communications satellites, as well as with ocean monitoring networks based on open data and AIS/SAR signals , increases the strategic value of the position for maritime surveillance operations and regional situational dominance.

Natal Air Base , located in the metropolitan region of Natal (RN), has consolidated historical relevance. Known during World War II as the “Springboard of Victory ”, BANT was used by the Allied forces as a logistical transit point between the American continent and the African and European theaters of operations. The base continues to be a robust facility, with an airstrip capable of receiving strategic aircraft such as the C-17 Globemaster III, the KC-135 Stratotanker and the new KC-46 Pegasus . Its geographical position offers easy access to both transatlantic routes and the port of Natal, which qualifies it as a high-value logistics hub for joint or expeditionary operations.

From an operational standpoint, Natal offers ideal conditions for in-flight refueling, medical evacuation, rapid mobilization of response forces, and support for airborne missions in crisis scenarios on the West African coast, the Caribbean, or the northern coast of South America. Its proximity to the Barreira do Inferno Launch Center (CLBI) also allows for synergy for intelligence operations to monitor and track Brazilian vectors that are being launched.

FAB Super Tucano A-28 with Commemorative paintwork of the 1st Fighter Aviation Group that fought in Italy during World War II Photo SO Johnson FAB

Both of these infrastructures, if combined under a forward presence concept, would allow the United States to establish an Atlantic containment arc that would complement its existing network of bases and staging points, such as Ascension Island, São Tomé Island, and facilities in Dakar . This surveillance and readiness belt would substantially expand U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities over the South Atlantic—a region traditionally outside NATO’s direct reach but where there is increasing activity by extraregional powers, including through research vessels, industrial fishing vessels, and dual-use offshore platforms potentially linked to sensitive data collection operations.

Legal basis and precedents

The legal-strategic basis presented by representatives and analysts close to the Trump administration to justify the claim over Fernando de Noronha and Natal rests on three main axes — all based on expanded interpretations of the history of hemispheric military cooperation, on legal provisions of the US security apparatus and on geopolitical doctrines maintained continuously since the Second World War.

The first vector is of a historical-operational nature. Both infrastructures were incorporated into the US war effort during World War II: Natal Air Base operated between 1942 and 1945 as a logistics base under direct American command, being one of the largest Allied air platforms outside the continental United States. Fernando de Noronha was adapted to serve as an advanced support point for naval aviation, with reinforcement of the local infrastructure by the United States Navy. This participation included financial contributions, supply of equipment, engineering works and construction of runways, all supported by the Lend-Lease Act (1941 ), which allowed the US to finance or build military infrastructure in Allied countries, under the implicit clause of common utility.

The second axis refers to what defense think tanks in the United States have been defining as the “ functional right of return .” Although not recognized in public international law, this informal doctrine has been rehearsed since the 1990s and gained traction with the resurgence of neo-Monroeist views around the Trump administration. The thesis holds that US-funded military assets in partner countries—especially in contexts of global threat or strategic competition—could be “reactivated” based on tacit agreements or the principle of hemispheric reciprocity . The rhetoric of this doctrine echoes elements of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and the Western Hemisphere Defense Zone , proclaimed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 and informally reaffirmed during the Cold War as an area of ​​vital interest for US maritime security.

The distance of 360 km from Fernando de Noronha to Natal Air Base is an unquestionable advantage compared to the 1,540 km from Ascension Island to the coast of Africa.

The third element mobilized by the US involves contractual and legislative precedents. The defunct Brazil-US Military Assistance Agreement (1952) , although formally terminated, continues to be frequently cited in technical documents and analyses by the RAND Corporation, CSIS and Heritage Foundation as a reference to the “tradition of hemispheric interoperability”. The 2019 Technological Safeguards Agreement (TSA) , signed under the Bolsonaro government to enable the use of the Alcântara Base , is mentioned as a political and diplomatic precedent that opens the way for new modalities of military access to sensitive facilities under Brazilian control.

Added to this framework are domestic US legislative frameworks that reinforce the thesis of extraterritorial mobilization. The Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 — the legal basis for providing military support to countries outside NATO — and the still-current Defense Production Act of 1950, which authorizes the US Executive to mobilize logistical and industrial resources outside the national territory in the event of an emergency, are often cited as provisions that would legally support forward operations. In addition, the National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) of recent years, especially those approved between 2017 and 2023, incorporated specific clauses on forward basing and cooperative security locations in extraregional areas, such as the South Atlantic, authorizing the Department of Defense to use resources to maintain a strategic presence in regions not formally covered by NATO.

The interpretation that emerges from this set of legal and doctrinal arguments is that, given the intensification of Sino-Russian competition in the South Atlantic and the need for hemispheric logistical resilience, the US would be legitimized — even without an explicit legal basis in Brazil — to claim priority or unrestricted use of infrastructures that, in its eyes, are part of a strategic network inherited from the Allied logic of the Second World War and reinforced by the normative architecture of the Cold War.

The name of this is colony

Sources from the diplomatic and Armed Forces departments confirmed to DefesaNet that representatives of the US diplomatic mission in Brazil discussed, in private meetings, the proposal to resume operations at the facilities in Fernando de Noronha and Natal, under the justification of “ functional right to strategic reuse ”. Under pressure, the Foreign Ministry remained silent. At the Ministry of Defense, the response from some sources — laconic — was limited to classifying the suggestion as “legally unfeasible” and “unacceptable under the current constitutional framework”. Behind the scenes, however, the tone is one of concern.

The 1988 Federal Constitution, in its article 49, item I, expressly prohibits the transfer of military installations to foreign forces without prior authorization from the National Congress and formalization in a legislative decree. This is a device to safeguard sovereignty — ignoring it would be equivalent to allowing, under diplomatic pretext, the installation of external military control posts on national territory, outside the Brazilian State.

Legal experts in international law and General Staff officers interviewed by DefesaNet were categorical: even tacit acceptance of the American proposal would be equivalent to the creation of foreign operational military enclaves within Brazilian territory — zones shielded from national authority, in which constitutional sovereignty would, in fact, be suspended. It would be the equivalent of allowing Brazil to voluntarily house military command compartments subordinate to the Pentagon.

More than a legal anomaly, this is a strategic humiliation. If Brazil gives in, it will assume the role of a subordinate military satellite in the South Atlantic, lending its territory to operations over which it has no control. It would be a watchdog on the fringes of NATO, used for logistical and operational purposes, with no compensation or reciprocity clauses. And most seriously, it will have no military or diplomatic means to impose any condition of denial.

This is the cost of historical and collective negligence. No Brazilian political generation, from any ideological persuasion, has ever structured a national defense project compatible with the country’s geopolitical weight. Between 1945 and 2025, Brazil oscillated between budgetary neglect and doctrinal submission . The result is a toothless state, with underfunded armed forces, no real deterrence, no technological autonomy, and no strategic framework to face pressure from global powers.

If the Brazilian government accepts, even indirectly , the technical operation of Fernando de Noronha or Natal by North American means, it will set a very serious precedent, the repercussions of which could destabilize regional confidence. Historical partners will see the gesture as colonial submission disguised as hemispheric cooperation, eroding any claim of strategic leadership by Brazil in the South Atlantic.

In this scenario, Brazil will not only surrender critical geographic positions — it will surrender the ultimate symbol of its sovereignty: control over its own territory.

US Air Force members participating in CRUZEX with an F15C Eagle from the Louisiana Air National Guard 159th Fighter Wing and a KC-46 at Natal Air Force Base. USAF Photo

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