News Analysis
Brazil Keeps Telling Trump to Get Lost
Latin America’s largest nation is shaping up as a test case
on how to defy President Trump.
Security officers at Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasília this
month. Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
By Jack
Nicas
Reporting from Brasília
Sept. 13, 2025
President Trump made his demands
to Brazil very clear: Drop the charges against former President Jair
Bolsonaro of attempting a coup.
To show he was serious, he hit Brazil with punishing tariffs,
launched a trade
investigation and imposed some of the most severe sanctions at
his disposal against the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case.
Brazil responded on Thursday by convicting Mr. Bolsonaro
anyway, sentencing
him to more than 27 years in prison for overseeing a failed plot to
stay in power after losing the 2022 elections.
Defiance has defined Brazil’s
response to Mr. Trump since he began trying to bully the country. So far, it
hasn’t resulted in disaster.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has watched his poll
numbers rise as
he has denounced his American counterpart. Alexandre
de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice targeted by sanctions, has been
fiercely backed by Brazil’s democratic institutions. And last month, when Mr.
Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian exports took effect, Brazil said its
global exports actually rose 4 percent because of increased purchases by China.
“Does anyone believe that a tweet from a foreign government
official will change a ruling in the Supreme Court?” Justice Flávio Dino said
as he cast his vote this past week to convict Mr. Bolsonaro.
In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted:
“The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”
Image
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil this month in
the capital, Brasília. Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
How much further Washington is willing to go in its fight
with Brazil is unclear. The U.S. government has already used some of its most
powerful tools. Its latest actions focused mostly on revoking the visas of some
Brazilian officials.
If the tariffs last — or even increase — it may eventually
prove difficult to explain to American voters why they should pay
more for beef, coffee and sugar to intervene in Mr. Bolsonaro’s case.
U.S. officials have said their problems with Brazil go
beyond Mr. Bolsonaro. They accuse Justice Moraes of censoring free speech by
ordering social networks to block
accounts that often he alone decides threaten Brazil’s democracy.
His actions have
indeed been harsh at times and lacked transparency, prompting
criticism within Brazil, too. He and fellow justices have argued that
the Brazilian right’s recent attacks on democracy — including a
plot to assassinate Justice Moraes — have required a firm response.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked
about Justice Moraes’s approach to the internet this week. Her response,
delivered as the judge was voting to convict Mr. Bolsonaro, raised eyebrows:
“The president is unafraid to use the economic might, the military might of the
United States of America to protect free speech around the world.”
Former President Jair Bolsonaro greeting supporters in March
in Rio de Janeiro. Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
Brazil’s government condemned the statement, and Mr. Lula later told a radio station, “The U.S. needs to know it’s not
dealing with a banana republic.”
Mr. Trump, for his part, did not seem to be revving for a
fight when asked Thursday if he would respond to Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction
with more sanctions. “It’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they
didn’t get away with it,” he said.
He did not mention any retaliation.
What is clear is that the White House’s campaign against
Brazil did not stop Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction, but it did hurt America’s image
in the country and push its largest ally in the Western Hemisphere closer to
China.
Mr. Lula has spoken with President Xi Jinping of China at
least twice since the U.S. tariffs took effect — but not once with Mr. Trump.
China, already Brazil’s largest trading partner ahead of the
United States, is becoming even more central to Brazil’s economic plan. China
bought 31 percent more from Brazil in August, when the tariffs kicked in,
compared with a year before. At the same time, Brazil’s sales to the United
States dropped 18.5 percent.
Public perceptions in Brazil of the United States and China
have been following a similar pattern. The percentage of Brazilians who said
they had a positive image of the United States fell to 44 percent in August,
from 58 percent in February 2024, according to a survey. Over the same period, those with a positive image
of China jumped to 49 percent from 38 percent.
(While Bolsonaro supporters have been waving
American flags at protests to thank Mr. Trump, the survey showed their
support for the United States was already so high that it hardly budged with
his intervention.)
Bolsonaro supporters during a protest in Brasília ahead of
the former president’s trial. Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
The American deputy secretary of State, Christopher
Landau, wrote online Thursday that Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction
drove “relations between our two great nations to their darkest point in two
centuries.”
Many on the left in Brazil would argue that the United
States’ support for
the 1964 military coup that led to a 21-year dictatorship in Brazil was a
darker moment. They see the current U.S. policy as another intervention from
Washington on behalf of the plotters of a coup.
U.S. officials, however, say they are saving Brazil’s
democracy.
That vast divide could be difficult to bridge.
“As long as Brazil leaves the fate of our relationship in
Justice Moraes’ hands,” Mr. Landau wrote, “I see no resolution to this crisis.”
Lis Moriconi contributed research.
Jack
Nicas is The Times’s Mexico City bureau chief, leading coverage of
Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 14,
2025, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the
headline: Defying Trump Has Played Well in Brazil.
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