Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has deepened his troubles, as the fallout from Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Brazilian goods intensifies. Bolsonaro, already on trial for an attempted coup in 2023, has had his home raided, been mandated to wear an ankle tag, and prohibited from using social media. Fears that he might abscond to a foreign embassy have also resulted in a ban from going near any diplomatic missions.

Brazil’s ultra-powerful Supreme Court Justice, Alexandre de Moraes, has now accused the former president and his son Eduardo, a congressman, of “interfering in the course of legal proceedings, destabilizing the Brazilian economy and pressuring the Judiciary.” At issue is the Bolsonaros’ alleged attempt to lobby the Trump administration to impose tariffs, in a bid to pressure Brazilian justice to go easy on the former president. The latter is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail if proven guilty on the major counts against him.

In acting in such a way, Bolsonaro effectively stands accused of treason. As such, the court is accelerating his trial and may pass sentence as soon as next month. All of this seems to add weight to the theory, put forward last week, that Trump’s tariffs were more motivated by an attempt to meddle in Brazilian internal affairs than driven by any geoeconomic rationale.

The Bolsonaros certainly seem intent on laying out the evidence for that view. Last week, Eduardo Bolsonaro celebrated Trump’s tariffs, posting “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP – MAKE BRAZIL FREE AGAIN,” while his older brother Flavio, a senator, yesterday called for Trump to withdraw tariffs and, in lieu, impose sanctions on individuals “who persecute citizens and US companies, violate liberties, and use public office to violate human rights and implode the democracy of a country to satisfy their own ego” — a thinly veiled reference to Moraes, long a thorn in the Bolsonaros’ side.

Though Moraes has often overstepped the bounds, the evidence against the Bolsonaros appears increasingly overwhelming — not least because they keep offering it up themselves. Bolsonaro’s ban on meeting foreign representatives should also be seen in the context of a briefing he gave to foreign ambassadors ahead of the 2022 election, during which he made dubious claims that the vote would be stolen.

Unsurprisingly, this whole affair has been a boon to President Lula. This week, he put out a video statement charging the Trump administration with “unacceptable blackmail against Brazilian institutions” and speaking of his “even greater indignation” at learning that “certain Brazilian politicians” colluded in this attack on Brazilian sovereignty. It is “treason against the homeland” by figures who bank on “the worse it gets, the better”.

Lula, reeling from a string of major defeats in Congress, had been losing support, with his approval ratings in negative territory since the beginning of the year. On the back of Trump’s tariffs, though, a poll conducted two days ago showed Lula rising seven points. The latest news can only work in his favor too. Especially for the Workers’ Party, this defense of sovereignty is comfortable terrain and, moreover, a way to flip the tables on a Right which has for decades attacked the Left in nationalist terms. This, then, is another case of the “Canada Effect”, where Trump tariffs generate a bump in popularity for incumbents who can profit from a rally-around-the-flag effect.

As for Trump and the Bolsonaros, this episode once again punctures their claims to support national sovereignty. The latter are appealing for US intervention almost like human-rights liberals who appeal to the US’s global power — via international institutions — to save them from domestic enemies. As for Trump, he was described by White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt as “the leader of the free world” in response to Lula’s charge that the US President “was not elected to be emperor of the world”.

So, rather than putting “America First”, Trump is meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, attempting to impose what would be de facto sanctions in pursuit of political outcomes (saving Bolsonaro); and prioritizing cross-border links between political groups instead of prioritizing national interests.

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Alex Hochuli is a writer based in São Paulo. He hosts the Aufhebunga Bunga podcast and is co-author of The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century.

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