The U.S. State Department criticized Brazil on Saturday after the country denied visas to two senior Trump administration officials, amid concerns in Brasília that the visit could be part of an effort to undermine Brazil’s upcoming presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Brazil’s October 4 election will feature incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against far-right lawmaker Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after losing to da Silva in 2022.

Flávio Bolsonaro has met with President Donald Trump at the White House and is widely viewed as Washington’s preferred candidate. Trump has already imposed tariffs on Brazil and sanctioned Supreme Court justices over the prosecution of the elder Bolsonaro, making the visa dispute the latest flashpoint in a relationship already strained by the Bolsonaro case and by Washington’s public posture toward Brazil’s election.

“Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday it had denied visas for Riley M. Barnes, assistant secretary from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and ⁠Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant secretary of state,” the Journal’s report reads.

“Brazil’s government believes [a] planned delegation is part of a concerted effort by Jair Bolsonaro’s sons – including his son Eduardo, who lives in the U.S. – to discredit the elections in case Flávio Bolsonaro loses in October, said people close to da Silva.”

The U.S. State Department confirmed to the Journal that Barnes and Samson had been scheduled to travel to Brazil next week for meetings on election integrity and other issues. The department rejected allegations that the meetings were intended to undermine Brazil’s election.

“Any insinuation of a ‘ploy’ to undermine a democratic nation’s election is a baseless lie,” the State Department said in a statement, according to the Journal.

Brazilian officials were recently alarmed by election-integrity claims made by Flávio Bolsonaro that closely resembled claims promoted by Trump and his administration. The focus on voting technology is especially sensitive in Brazil because the country’s election court has publicly defended the security of its electronic-voting system against fraud claims.

“Brazilian officials said alarm bells went off in the capital of Brasília earlier this week when Flávio Bolsonaro told diplomats that the country’s electronic-voting machines were produced by the Venezuelan company Smartmatic, insinuating they were vulnerable to fraud,” the Journal’s report reads.

“Brazil’s election court has rejected those claims, saying that Smartmatic has never supplied voting machines used in Brazilian elections and that international observers have consistently found the country’s system to be secure.”