{"id":21376,"date":"2025-07-19T11:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21376\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T11:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:55:08","slug":"trumps-tariff-threat-to-save-brazils-ex-president-bolsonaro-revives-lulas-fortunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/21376\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s tariff threat to save Brazil’s ex-president Bolsonaro revives Lula’s fortunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAO PAULO (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> may have thought that pressuring Brazil with higher tariffs<\/a> would help his ally, the country\u2019s former President Jair Bolsonaro, but the move apparently backfired.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump sent a letter to Brazilian President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> threatening a 50% import tax and directly linking the decision to Bolsonaro\u2019s trial, which he called a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis trial should end immediately!\u201d Trump wrote Thursday evening in a second letter, this one addressed to Bolsonaro. He added that he had \u201cstrongly voiced\u201d his disapproval through his tariff policy.<\/p>\n

Rather than backing down, Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court escalated the case, worsening Bolsonaro\u2019s legal troubles. On Friday morning, federal police raided Bolsonaro\u2019s home and political office<\/a>. The former president was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, banned from using social media, and hit with other restrictions.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, President Lula \u2014 who was facing higher unpopularity, growing opposition in Congress and increasing risks to his likely reelection bid \u2014 seems to have gained politically from the situation. <\/p>\n

Now the 79-year-old leftist Lula, in office for the third non-consecutive term of his long political career, is seeing renewed acceptance, congressional support against Trump and pleas to run one last time to defend Brazil\u2019s sovereignty. <\/p>\n

Back in the game<\/p>\n

Lula has appeared more energized in public since Trump\u2019s announcement. At a national students assembly Thursday, he wore a blue cap reading \u201cSovereign Brazil Unites Us\u201d \u2014 a contrast to MAGA\u2019s red cap. <\/p>\n

\u201cA gringo will not give orders to this president,\u201d he told the crowd, and called the tariff hike \u201cunacceptable blackmail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The impact on Lula is not a first. Trump\u2019s actions targeting other countries have boosted ideological rivals in Canada<\/a> and Australia instead of strengthening his allies at a local level.<\/p>\n

Private pollster Atlas said Tuesday that Lula\u2019s unpopularity had reversed course after his spat with Trump. Lula\u2019s job approval went from at 47.3% in June to 49.7% since the tariffs battle began. The poll of more than 2,800 people was conducted July 11-13, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The study also said 62.2% of Brazilians think the higher tariffs are unjustified while 36.8% agree with the measure. <\/p>\n

Even Bolsonaro\u2019s former vice president, Sen. Hamilton Mour\u00e3o, criticized Trump\u2019s move as undue interference in Brazil\u2019s politics, though he said he agreed the trial against the far-right leader is biased against him.<\/p>\n

Social media analytics firm Palver analyzed 20,000 messages about Trump on WhatsApp, Brazil\u2019s most widely used communication platform, a day after Trump\u2019s announcement. Its analysis said right-wing users dominated viral content, but spontaneous conversations leaned left, mocking Bolsonaro as submissive and defending Brazil\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has put Lula back in the game,\u201d said Thomas Traumann, an independent political consultant and former spokesman for the Brazilian presidency who only weeks ago argued that Lula had lost his front-runner status in the presidential race as he struggled to deliver on his promises on the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump handed it to Lula on a silver platter,\u201d Traumann said.<\/p>\n

Business leaders who until recently sided with Bolsonaro are having to court Lula to negotiate with Trump. Agribusiness, Brazil\u2019s largest economic sector and a traditional right-wing stronghold, united to criticize the U.S. president\u2019s move. Industry groups were quick to denounce the tariffs as politically motivated and lacking any commercial justification.<\/a><\/p>\n

National outrage<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, with the major exception of a more radical conservative wing, (Trump\u2019s move) generated national outrage for violating Brazil\u2019s sovereignty,\u201d lawmaker Arnaldo Jardim, a member of the congressional agricultural caucus, told The Associated Press. <\/p>\n

Jardim, who pushed for the approval of a reciprocity bill that could be used by Lula if there\u2019s no agreement until the Aug. 1 deadline, hardly sides with the president. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven among sectors that initially thought this could benefit Bolsonaro, many had to reconsider their positions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Top congressional leaders who recently helped nix a Lula decree to raise a transactions tax were moving toward a head-on collision with him. After Trump\u2019s announcement, they signed a joint statement agreeing with Lula\u2019s promise to use the reciprocity law against the U.S. <\/p>\n

In another change, Brazil\u2019s Congress decided to start moving on Lula\u2019s plan to give an income tax break to millions of poorer Brazilians. Many politicians said that such initiative was dead after Lula became the first president in three decades to have a decree annulled by lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro remains on trial<\/p>\n

At the Supreme Court, Bolsonaro is only getting deeper into trouble as his trial continues. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Brazil\u2019s chief prosecutor called for a guilty verdict<\/a>, accusing the former president of leading an armed criminal organization, attempting to stage a coup and attempting violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, among other charges. <\/p>\n

The defense will next likely present its case in the coming weeks, after which the panel of Supreme Court justices<\/a> in the trial will vote on whether to convict or acquit him.<\/p>\n

The former president also suffered more consequences \u2014 the court\u2019s latest restrictions on Bolsonaro, including the ankle monitor, are part of a second investigation against one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian lawmaker who currently lives in the United States and is known for his close ties to Trump. He has been under scrutiny for allegedly working with U.S. authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees criminal cases against Bolsonaro, said his and his son\u2019s actions attempted to pressure the Brazilian judiciary by involving the U.S. <\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision cited both Trump\u2019s letter to Lula and several social media posts by the Bolsonaros in support of sanctions against Brazilian officials and speaking favorably about tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cA sovereign country like Brazil will always know how to defend its democracy and sovereignty,\u201d de Moraes said. \u201cThe judiciary will not allow any attempt to subject the functioning of the Supreme Court to the scrutiny of another state through hostile acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jair Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia, the country\u2019s capital, that the ankle monitoring was a \u201csupreme humiliation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy, but the precautionary measures are because of that,\u201d the former president said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Eduardo Bolsonaro accused de Moraes of trying to criminalize Trump and the U.S. government. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince he has no power over them, he decided to make my father a hostage,\u201d the younger Bolsonaro said of the judge.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAO PAULO (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump may have thought that pressuring Brazil with higher tariffs would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[19429,23,19427,941,19426,2302,12,109,19425,793,962,3139,2561,3140,2221,19424,3,111,18598,19428,21,19,22,20,25,24,800,965],"class_list":["post-21376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-alexandre-de-moraes","tag-america","tag-arnaldo-jardim","tag-brazil","tag-brazil-government","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-economic-policy","tag-eduardo-bolsonaro","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-international-trade","tag-jair-bolsonaro","tag-latin-america","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-luiz-incio-lula-da-silva","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-america","tag-thomas-traumann","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}