Portugal isnt part of any “eyes” alliance that Im aware of and unencrypted whatsapp backups provided by apple and google are used as decisive proof in defamation cases and other similar infractions and most high profile corruption and tax evasion scandals of the last few years were built thanks to said backups as well as metadata provided directly by facebook/meta.
Based on that Id say that the level of access provided by big foreign tech companies and the carriers is similar. With whatsapp you at least protect the stuff thats actually E2EE