Donald Trump severely increases the tone. On Wednesday, July 30, the US President signed a decree that imposed 40 percentage points of additional customs tariffs on products imported from Brazil, which protects it in total, 50%surcharge.
On the basis of this American support, the former president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, said he was “very grateful”, calling “the other leaders of the free world to join in the United States.”
The president of the United States had threatened Brasilia in recent weeks to impose such a recharge, in retaliation for the prosecution launched against former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, prosecuted for an attempted attempted after his defeat during the election of presidential elections in 2022.
And the United States is not in its first blow, to support Jair Bolsonaro. The American Treasury Department first took sanctions aimed at Alexander de Moraes, the Judge of the Brazilian Supreme Court, which Washington accuses of “arbitrary arrests” and the breach of “freedom of expression.”
The Treasury believes that the judge took advantage of his position to “point to political opponents, in particular former President Jair Bolsonaro, journalists, US social networks and other US and international companies.”
“Witch hunting”
These sanctions lead to the freezing of all assets held by Alexandre de Moraes in the United States, as well as the prohibition that US citizens or companies do business with the Brazilian judge, under a penalty of prosecution.
Those announced by the State Department complement on July 18, whose objective was all the judges of the Supreme Court and their nearby relatives, to whom they are prohibited from entering the United States.
The Brazilian government has described these sanctions as “arbitrary” and “unjustifiable”, and sees it as “a serious and unacceptable attack on sovereignty” in Brazil, according to a statement by the Brazilian agency for the legal defense of the State (AGU).
The minister in charge of institutional relations in Brazil, Gleisi Hoffmann, expressed the “total rejection of the Lula government” towards these sanctions.
Bolsonaro risk 40 years in prison
Jair Bolsonaro’s trial for an alleged coup attempt against the current president of the left, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, must end in the coming weeks. The former Head of State (2019-2022), 70, risks more than 40 years in prison.
In addition to using an electronic bracelet, Jair Bolsonaro is forced to stay at home at night and the weekend, and prohibits using social networks and contacting embassy and foreign authorities.
Brazilian authorities have also adopted a very firm position on the fight against misinformation, the Supreme Court has hardened in June 2024 the regulation of social networks.
Judge Moraes had blocked for 40 days X in Brazil, until the Elon Musk multimillionaire network complies with the orders of eliminating accounts accused of disseminating information.
For the same reasons, in February the blockade of the Rumble Video Platform, popular among American conservatives.
Source: BFM TV
