The magistrate now accuses Jair Bolsonaro of having sought to hinder the trial and of having encouraged the United States of “carrying out hostile acts” against Brazil. The judge’s decision comes a few days after the announcement by Donald Trump of a 50 % surcharge on Brazilian products imported into the country. A drastic increase in customs duties taken in retaliation for legal proceedings against the former Brazilian leader, seen as a “witch hunt” by the American president, who called for “immediately” the case.
In his decision, judge Moraes believes that this measure would aim to “create a serious economic crisis in Brazil” and thus to “exert political and social pressure on the judiciary” to make the trial fail. The day before the police operation, Jair Bolsonaro had also suggested that he was ready to “negotiate” with Donald Trump to put an end to this surcharge, provided that the charges are abandoned against the defendants in the trial for attempted coup.
Attempted coup in Brazil: Beginning of Bolsonaro interrogations and other accused
In addition to wearing an electronic bracelet and permanent surveillance, Jair Bolsonaro must now stay at his home at night and the weekend and prohibits contact with foreign diplomats or approaching an embassy. This measure aims to avoid a possible leak of the former head of state, who, according to the Brazilian prosecutor general, has planned to ask for political asylum in the United States, where his younger son has been, Eduardo Bolsonaro, with whom he has now no longer had the right to communicate.
Since his departure, the latter, who has started his mandate as a federal deputy, has been actively working to convince the Trump administration to impose sanctions against the Brazilian authorities, encouraged by his father. Hearing the police in early June, Jair Bolsonaro admitted to the federal police that they had transferred 2 million reais (around 308,000 euros). What bring the investigators to conclude that the ex-president financed activities “undermining national sovereignty” in Brazil.
To the journalists who awaited him at the exit of the siege of the federal police, the far-right leader said he was the victim of a “persecution” and blamed President Lula and Judge Moraes for the current tensions between Brazil and the United States. Questioned on the $ 14,000 (around 12,000 euros) and the 8,000 reais (1,200 euros) found in cash at his home during the search, Jair Bolsonaro declared that he retained this money “for a possible trip” – although his passport was confiscated by the authorities in February 2024 – while denying any intention to leak the country.
“The evidence of a possible leak is solid,” said the conservative daily O estado de São Paulo, for whom Jair Bolsonaro “deserved the severe restrictions imposed on him”. Restrictions that pass a “clear message: that which” Brazil is a sovereign country, where no one is above the law “.
In any case, these measures come to stir up a little more the embers of an emerging diplomatic crisis between Brasilia and Washington. Friday evening, the American government announced the revocation of the visas of the Moraes judge, the magistrates in charge of the trial and even their relatives. According to the daily Folha of São Paulo, members of the US State Department would also have entrusted to Jair Bolsonaro allies that other sanctions could follow in the coming days, such as the increase in customs taxes on Brazilian exports to 100 %, blocking access to satellites or even restrictions on American airspace for Brazilian planes.
