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jair bolsonaro
Trump State Dept. Threatens Further Intervention in Brazil After Bolsonaro Put Under House Arrest
"Bolsonaro and Donald Trump are plotting a coup against Brazil," said a Brazilian geopolitics scholar.
Aug 05, 2025
Brazil's Supreme Court placed far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest Monday in anticipation of his trial for allegedly attempting a coup following his loss in the 2022 election.
The order has heightened the current government's already simmering tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has imposed high tariffs on some Brazilian imports over what he calls a "witch hunt" against his ally.
Bolsonaro's house arrest was ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who says the former president had violated restrictions imposed last month banning him from using social media, which he'd been using to rile up supporters to attack the Supreme Court.
The justice said Bolsonaro had used the accounts of allies, including his politician sons, to send "clear encouragement and incitement to attack the Supreme Federal Court, and overt support for foreign intervention in Brazil's judiciary."
The Associated Press reports that Bolsonaro had his phones seized from his Brasilia residence.
Trump slapped Moraes, who is presiding over Bolsonaro's trial, with Magnitsky sanctions—typically reserved for major human rights abusers—last week, which supporters of Brazil's left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called "a direct attack on Brazilian democracy."
Brazilian journalist Brian Mier says Bolsonaro has been emboldened by Trump's support to defy Moraes' orders, assuming that threats from the U.S. would cause the judge "to back down."
"It backfired," Mier said.
The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs issued a furious condemnation of Bolsonaro's arrest, promising to "hold accountable all those aiding and abetting sanctioned conduct."
The department hinted that it may place more sanctions on other members of the Supreme Court.
Maria do Rosário, a federal deputy for Lula's Workers' Party (PT), hit back in a post on X.
"With what authority does this attempt to interfere in Brazil's judiciary power, and the threat to Brazilian authorities and citizens persist?" she asked. "None."
The charges against Bolsonaro, often called the "Trump of the tropics," bear a striking resemblance to those leveled against the U.S. president following his 2020 election loss.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro flagrantly spread false claims that his election loss was the result of rampant fraud, which prompted a mob of supporters to attack the legislature in hopes of overturning the "stolen" election.
Brazilian state police have accused Bolsonaro of going even further—allegedly enlisting military officers in a plot to assassinate Lula and forcibly retake power.
Trump has nevertheless drawn parallels between his own legal struggles and those faced by Bolsonaro.
"This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent – Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10," Trump wrote last month on Truth Social.
Vinicios Betiol, a geopolitics scholar from the University of Rio de Janeiro, says that "Bolsonaro and Donald Trump are plotting a coup against Brazil."
While he said the arrest of Bolsonaro is worth celebrating, he cautioned that provoking the Supreme Court was part of his strategy "to fuel the narrative of persecution" and whip up civil unrest among his supporters.
"Radical Bolsonarists," he said, "are already talking about blocking roads, toppling power towers, and attacking the [Supreme Court]."
Video: Terra Brasil
Following the announcement of Bolsonaro's arrest, supporters of the former president flooded the streets and drove around the capital Brasilia, with some chanting, "Brazil will stop."
Many of Bolsonaro's supporters view Trump as a key cog in the effort to shield Bolsonaro from prosecution. As The Guardian reports:
On Monday night, hundreds of followers flocked to the gates of Bolsonaro's upmarket condominium to vent their anger, some carrying U.S. flags.
"We want Trump to help us," said one protester, Ricardo, who wore a red MAGA cap and declined to give his second name as he stood outside Bolsonaro's compound holding up a star-spangled banner. "Our solution can no longer come from within [Brazil]. It has to come from abroad. The sanctions are working. More people need to be hit with Magnitsky."
"They know that Bolsonaro will be convicted and have thus gone all-in," Betiol said. "They are willing to cause civil unrest, force the [Supreme Court] to act, and then seek a coup with Trump's help."
"We must indeed celebrate Bolsonaro's arrest," he continued, "but we cannot lower our guard at this decisive moment in our country's history."
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‘We Will Not Accept Foreign Interference’: Brazilian Lawmakers Hit Back Over Trump Economic Warfare
Even right-wing Brazilian politicians are condemning Trump's actions as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference."
Jul 31, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing international condemnation for his decision to level sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a bid to punish him for overseeing the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Brazilian political leaders are not backing down in the face of Trump's economic warfare, which includes not only sanctions against Moraes but also 50% tariffs on several key Brazilian exports to the United States, including coffee and beef.
Chamber of Deputies member José Guimarães, a member of the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores, described Trump's actions as "a direct attack on Brazilian democracy and sovereignty" and vowed that "we will not accept foreign interference in... our justice system."
Left-wing politicians weren't the only ones to criticize the sanctions and tariffs, as right-wing Partido Novo founder João Amoêdo condemned them as "an unacceptable attempt at foreign interference in the Brazilian justice system." Eduardo Leite, the conservative governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, said he refused to accept "another country trying to interfere in our institutions" as Trump has done.
In justifying the sanctions and tariffs, the Trump White House said they were a measure to combat what it described as "the government of Brazil's politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters."
Bolsonaro is currently on trial for undertaking an alleged coup plot to prevent the country's current president, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, from taking power after his victory in Brazil's 2022 presidential election.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, openly celebrated Trump's punitive measures against Brazil this week, which earned him a stiff rebuke from the editorial board of Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil's largest daily newspapers. In their piece, the Folha editors labeled Eduardo Bolsonaro an "enemy of Brazil" and said he was behaving like "a buffoon at the feet of a foreign throne" with his open lobbying of the Trump administration to punish his own country.
Elsewhere in the world, the U.K.-based magazine The Economist leveled Trump for his Brazil sanctions, which it described as an "unprecedented" assault on the country's sovereignty. The magazine also outlined the considerable evidence that the former Brazilian president took part in a coup plot, including a plan written out by Bolsonaro deputy chief of staff Mario Fernandes to assassinate or kidnap Lula and Moraes before the end of Bolsonaro's lone presidential term.
U.S. government reform advocacy group Public Citizen was also quick to condemn Trump's actions, which it described as a "shameless power grab."
"Trump's order sets a horrifying precedent that literally any domestic judicial action or democratically enacted policy set by another country could somehow justify a U.S. national emergency and bestow the president with powers far beyond what the Constitution provides," said Melinda St. Louis, global trade watch director at Public Citizen.
St. Louis also predicted that the tariffs on Brazil would soon be tossed out by courts given their capricious justifications, although she said the reputation of the U.S. would suffer "lasting damage."
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Trump’s Tariffs on Brazil Are About Power and Profit
For the sake of protecting himself, oligarchs, and authoritarians, Trump is willing to make life for the average Brazilian significantly worse.
Jul 15, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced new 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports, set to take effect this August. Trump has said these tariffs are a response to the “witch hunt” against disgraced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, on trial for his role in supporting a coup d’état.
Beyond threatening democracy and sovereignty, these tariffs are about a core of Trump’s brand: personal loyalty, elite self-preservation, and corruption. As with Trump’s overall foreign policy, whether toward Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, Qatar, or others, his posture toward Brazil is driven not by principle but by self-interest, through private business interests, campaign donors, family friends, and alliances with authoritarian strongmen.
Bolsonaro is currently facing multiple criminal investigations, including for orchestrating a failed coup attempt on January 8, 2023, Brazil’s version of the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Bolsonaro and his acolytes, including former cabinet members and generals, allegedly would have killed leading officials, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The trial is led by Moraes himself and has been widely televised, and is a key turning point for the nation’s path forward to democracy, or in a return to oligarchy and fascism.
Despite being a conservative himself, Moraes has become a far-right boogeyman, reviled by figures like Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump. Now, with Brazil’s judiciary closing in on Bolsonaro and his allies, Trump appears willing to mobilize U.S. economic warfare to derail the legal process and protect one of his own.
By casting Bolsonaro as a victim of judicial persecution, Trump reinforces his own narrative that any kind of accountability is political persecution, protecting himself and his allies from prosecution.
Perhaps no foreign political family is as close to Trumpworld as the Bolsonaros. Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair’s son and political heir—likely his replacement in the next presidential election—maintains a friendship with Donald Trump Jr., and has made a lot of efforts to ingratiate himself with MAGA; learning English, making frequent trips to Washington and Florida (and living in the U.S.), and now sporting a Trump hat.
His recent visit to Washington during his father’s trial was part of a broader pressure campaign, backed by right-wing U.S. politicians and Bolsonaro-linked operatives. He has been pushing for the Trump administration to take measures against Lula and his government. This is economic warfare for personal and political gain.
Among the other most vocal allies are Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Bolsonaro confidant Paulo Figueiredo, and lawyer Martin De Luca.
After leaving office, Jair Bolsonaro fled to Orlando, Florida, where he lived for several months on a tourist visa while under active criminal investigation. Instead of facing consequences, he was embraced by Florida’s MAGA elite. Calls from Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), for his visa to be revoked were ignored.
Salazar has also used her seat in Congress to target Brazil’s judiciary. In 2024, she publicly called on the U.S. State Department to revoke the visas of Brazilian Supreme Court justices, including Moraes, after they had pursued legal action against Elon Musk’s Twitter for boosting misinformation and failing to appoint legal representatives.
Salazar is deeply financially tied to this fight. Salazar receives significant campaign funding from real estate developers, private equity funds, medical PACs, and conservative pro-Israel donors, many of whom also benefit from Bolsonaro’s lax regulatory approach, support of Israel (while Lula recognizes Palestinian statehood), and are hostile to Lula’s redistributive economic policies. They have bought her loyalty.
Meanwhile, Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Brasil has become a launchpad for exporting Trumpism into Latin America. Jair and Eduardo Bolsonaro have headlined several CPAC Brasil events, alongside U.S. operatives like Steve Bannon, Jason Miller, and Matt Schlapp. Bannon once publicly praised the January 8 attackers as “freedom fighters.” The Bolsonaros have also spoken at CPAC in the United States. Both Miller and Bannon were also allegedly implicated in helping organize the January 8 insurrection and promoting election misinformation in Brazil. Miller’s social media platform, Gettr, was promoted by Bolsonaro allies as a free-speech refuge after platform bans.
Paulo Figueiredo, one of Bolsonaro’s closest allies in the U.S., was an early investor in the Trump Hotel project in Rio de Janeiro. He was one of Trump’s earliest backers in 2016, especially in the business community. The deal collapsed in 2016 amid widespread corruption investigations. Figueiredo, the grandson of a former Brazilian dictator, has repeatedly praised Trump as a business icon and maintains contact with his circle, playing a key role in these recent policy developments in the second Trump term.
Another key figure, Martin De Luca, formerly of the Kobre & Kim law firm (with an office in São Paulo) and now at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, acts as a legal bridge between the Trumps and Bolsonaros. He has defended Bolsonaro-linked commentators against deplatforming and advised both Trump Media and Jair Bolsonaro directly. He has been a key lobbyist for these tariffs and broader sanctions against Lula and his government, and provides close support to the Bolsonaro camp.
At the heart of this tariff attack is also Lula’s broader leftist financial and economic policy. His finance minister, Fernando Haddad, has introduced ambitious reforms aimed at reducing inequality: wealth and real estate taxes that favor the poor and middle class against the rich, corporate regulation, labor reform, and taxes on the financial system. They are all meant to inject balance into a system that has been controlled by an elite class, which has dictated Brazil’s policies for a very long time. These proposals have been fiercely opposed by Bolsonaro’s base: the big banks, media conglomerates, agribusiness, evangelicals, and the ultra-wealthy, and by Trump-aligned investors in the U.S.
Bolsonaro’s allies are openly lobbying a foreign power to impose economic pain on their own country to preserve elite impunity. By casting Bolsonaro as a victim of judicial persecution, Trump reinforces his own narrative that any kind of accountability is political persecution, protecting himself and his allies from prosecution.
This move is not only a threat to Brazil’s judiciary and democracy, but a direct attack on the country’s sovereignty, echoing Cold War-era tactics where the United States used its economic, military, and geopolitical power to punish Latin American nations (like Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, and so many others) for pursuing leftist or redistributive policies deemed contrary to the interests of its elite ruling class.
For the sake of protecting himself, oligarchs, and authoritarians, Trump is willing to make life for the average Brazilian significantly worse, while continuing to wage war on the poor at home through his destructive economic agenda.
Update: An earlier version of this article said that Martin De Luca worked with the Kobre & Kim law firm. He ceased to work there in 2023. The article has been updated to reflect this.
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