Supporters of Brazil’s former President, Jair Bolsonaro, at a rally on September 7 before of his Supreme Court trial, in Brasilia, Brazil. Photo / Dado Galdieri, The New York Times
United States President Donald Trump made his demands to Brazil very clear: Drop the charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting a coup.
To show he was serious, he hit Brazil with punishing tariffs, launched a trade investigation, and imposed some of the most severe sanctions at his disposal against the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case.
Brazil responded on Friday by convicting Bolsonaro anyway, sentencing him to more than 27 years in prison for overseeing a failed plot to stay in power after losing the 2022 elections.
Defiance has defined Brazil’s response to Trump since he began trying to bully the country. So far, it hasn’t resulted in disaster.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has watched his poll numbers rise as he has denounced his American counterpart.
Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice targeted by sanctions, has been fiercely backed by Brazil’s democratic institutions.
And last month, when Trump’s 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports took effect, Brazil said its global exports actually rose 4% because of increased purchases by China.
“Does anyone believe that a tweet from a foreign government official will change a ruling in the Supreme Court?” Justice Flávio Dino said as he cast his vote this past week to convict Bolsonaro.
In response, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted: “The US will respond accordingly to this witch hunt”.
How much further Washington is willing to go in its fight with Brazil is unclear.
The US Government has used some of its most powerful tools. Its latest actions focused mostly on revoking the visas of some Brazilian officials.
If the tariffs last — or even increase — it may eventually prove difficult to explain to American voters why they should pay more for beef, coffee, and sugar to intervene in Bolsonaro’s case.
US officials have said their problems with Brazil go beyond Bolsonaro.
They accuse de Moraes of censoring free speech by ordering social networks to block accounts that often he alone decides threaten Brazil’s democracy.
His actions have indeed been harsh at times and lacked transparency, prompting criticism within Brazil, too.
He and fellow justices have argued that the Brazilian right’s recent attacks on democracy — including a plot to assassinate de Moraes — have required a firm response.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked this past week about de Moraes’ approach to the internet.
Her response, delivered as the judge was voting to convict Bolsonaro, raised eyebrows: “The President is unafraid to use the economic might, the military might of the United States of America to protect free speech around the world”.
Brazil’s Government condemned the statement, and Lula later told a radio station, “The US needs to know it’s not dealing with a banana republic”.
Trump, for his part, did not seem to be revving for a fight when asked on Friday if he would respond to Bolsonaro’s conviction with more sanctions.
“It’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it,” he said. He did not mention any retaliation.
What is clear is that the White House’s campaign against Brazil did not stop Bolsonaro’s conviction, but it did hurt America’s image in the country and push its largest ally in the Western Hemisphere closer to China.
Lula has spoken to President Xi Jinping of China at least twice since the US tariffs took effect — but not once with Trump.
China, Brazil’s largest trading partner ahead of the US, is becoming even more central to Brazil’s economic plan.
China bought 31% more from Brazil in August, when the tariffs kicked in, compared with a year before. At the same time, Brazil’s sales to the US dropped 18.5%.
Public perceptions in Brazil of the US and China have been following a similar pattern.
The percentage of Brazilians who said they had a positive image of the US fell to 44% in August, from 58% in February 2024, according to a survey.
Over the same period, those with a positive image of China jumped to 49% from 38%.
While Bolsonaro supporters have been waving American flags at protests to thank Trump, the survey showed their support for the US was so high that it hardly budged with his intervention.
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote online that Bolsonaro’s conviction drove “relations between our two great nations to their darkest point in two centuries.”
Many on the left in Brazil would argue that the US support for the 1964 military coup that led to a 21-year dictatorship in Brazil was a darker moment.
They see the current US policy as another intervention from Washington on behalf of the plotters of a coup.
US officials, however, say they are saving Brazil’s democracy.
That vast divide could be difficult to bridge.
“As long as Brazil leaves the fate of our relationship in Justice Moraes’ hands,” Landau wrote, “I see no resolution to this crisis.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Jack Nicas
Photograph by: Dado Galdieri
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