Brazilian policy and agribusiness damage the Amazon rainforest

•Governmental actions reduce the control of deforestation.•A feedback cycle connects politicians, farmers, and the slashing of environmental protection.•Agribusiness plays a central role in GHG emissions in Brazil. Since his inauguration on January 1, 2019, Jair Bolsonaro, a declared right-wing candidate nicknamed “Tropical Trump,” has introduced measures to reduce environmental restrictions on livestock farming, the main greenhouse gas (GHG) producing sector in Brazil that is responsible for most of the deforestation in the country. This dangerous relationship between politics and livestock farming in Brazil is detrimental to environmental conservation. Politicians are introducing measures that facilitate the expansion of this type of farming, which in turn provides inputs for the food industry, i.e. agribusiness, which in turn finances politics, thus producing a dangerous cycle in forest conservation.