Jair Bolsonaro is in the dock over an attempted coup, and could face jail. Meanwhile, Trump is back in the White House
WASHINGTON, DC – Hunkered down in the protective cocoon of the White House, Donald Trump is casting a furious eye 4,000 miles to the south, on the Supreme Federal Court complex in Brasilia.
The spectacular modernist building, nestled in the heart of a city declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, is where former President Jair Bolsonaro finds himself facing closing arguments at his trial.
Along with top military officers, he is accused of attempting to overthrow the country’s democracy following his election loss in 2022 – an alleged putsch that ended with his supporters breaking into and damaging government buildings in the Brazilian capital.
Trump, of course, has faced no similar sanction for his behaviour eighteen months earlier, when a riotous mob of his supporters engaged in their deadly rampage on Capitol Hill.
But perhaps mindful of the possibility that America’s constitutional guardrails have not yet been fully demolished, the US President has been eagerly acting as Bolsonaro’s greatest supporter on the international stage.
The two men are not only joined-at-the-hip ideologically, but both stand accused of fomenting efforts to upend their respective countries’ democratic systems (Bolsonaro, like Trump, has also cast baseless aspersions about electronic voting machines).
Where the former Brazilian president finds himself today, Trump may still worry he could end up there eventually.
Since his January return to the White House, Trump has engaged in a scorched-earth policy aimed at punishing Brazil for daring to bring charges against his friend and ally.
In a relentless series of messages on his social media account, he described the prosecution’s case as a “witch-hunt”, insisting last month that “Brazil is doing a terrible thing…they have done nothing but come after him, day after day, night after night, month after month, year after year”.
His post ended with the demand: “LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!”
To drive the message home, he has used his tariffs as a blunt instrument to try and pressure the government of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva to drop the case against his predecessor.
Brazil now faces US tariffs of 50 per cent on all exports to the United States, an imposition that Trump connected directly to Bolsonaro’s fate.
“This trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY”, Trump thundered in a letter to the Brazilian leader informing him of the punishing tariffs now in force on $40bn (£30bn) of goods sold to the US, including oil, coffee and steel.
Brazil’s investigative authorities have also found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, serving on a panel of judges overseeing Bolsonaro’s trial, has been sanctioned by the US.
In July, the Trump administration accused him of “serious human rights abuse” and “flagrant denials of fair trial guarantees”. Visa bans have also been imposed on the country’s Justice Minister, Ricardo Lewandowski, a move Lula branded an “irresponsible gesture”.
When the trial wraps up next week, most court observers in Brazil anticipate that Bolsonaro will face a guilty verdict. Trump is reportedly planning to implement fresh sanctions and possibly higher tariffs on Brazil the moment any conviction is announced.
Bolsonaro denies all the charges against him and embraces Trump’s characterisation of the case as a witch-hunt. Last week, he was placed under 24/7 surveillance at the private, gated community where he resides in Brasilia, amid reports that he was considering fleeing and seeking asylum in Argentina.
Brazil’s ability to put a former president on trial stands in stark contrast to the situation in Washington.
In July 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution, stymying the legal case against Trump over the 2020 election.
After his victory in November 2024, the federal charges against him were dropped.
While Bolsonaro has already been banned from running for re-election in 2026, regardless of the trial’s outcome, Trump is not only back in office but seeking to expand the powers of his office beyond all constitutional limits.
“I have the right to do anything I want. I’m the President of the United States”, he claimed at a Cabinet meeting last week, the boldest assertion yet of the all-powerful executive that he now seeks to create.
In Brazil, the Supreme Court has granted itself expanded powers since the moment Bolsonaro entered office. De Moraes implemented a series of investigations initially to defend the Court and other Brazilian institutions against far-right attacks designed to undermine them.
But following the 2022 alleged plot by Bolsonaro and senior military leaders to overturn Lula’s election win, those extended powers have put the former president firmly in the legal spotlight.
In Washington, by contrast, the US Supreme Court lacks any independent ability to mount investigations of its own.
With the traditional independence of the Department of Justice being stripped away by Trump, the president can remain confident that his actions trying to subvert Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US election are not currently likely to come back under the prosecutorial spotlight.
But more than any other occupant of the Oval Office, Trump knows the vicissitudes of political life can prove deeply unpredictable. So his untrammelled support for Bolsonaro is about protecting an old friend, but also about establishing the principle that elected, far-right ideologues should never find themselves facing justice at the hands of unelected judges.
